First John
By Dr. Darrell Richard Ferguson
Contents
Book Summary
Fellowship with God Part 1 I Touched the Word of Life 1:1
Introduction
From the Beginning
Seen, Touched, Heard
What is wonderful about the proof
Fellowship with God Part 2 The Word of Life 1:1b-2
Introduction
The meaning of life
Spiritual Life
The Origin of the Life
Fellowship with God Part 3 Fellowship through Revelation 1:3
Introduction: Revealed, not Discovered
Review
The Revelation of the Life v.2
Fellowship with the Apostles
Fellowship with God
If God has clearly communicated, we should eagerly listen!
Fellowship with God Part 4 Fellowship with God 1:3b
Introduction
The Importance of Fellowship with God
Refuting the pagan view (taking “koinonia” captive)
The biblical picture of fellowship with God
Summary: 1) Join, 2) Attend 3) Receive
Conclusion: A day in the life of a Christian
Fellowship with God Part 5 Joy through Ministry 1:4
Introduction
Motive for Ministry: Why should you serve?
How to Get Joy
Conclusion
Sin in the Christian Life Part 1 God is Light 1:5-7
Introduction: The problem of Christian sin
Premise 1: God is light
Premise 2: There is no darkness in Him
Conclusion: Fellowshipers with light cannot walk in darkness
Walking in the Light
Don’t walk in the darkness!
Sin in the Christian Life Part 2 What is Fellowship? 1:6-7
Fellowship with God
Fellowship with one another
Conclusion: walk in the light!
Sin in the Christian Life Part 3 Confession 1:8-9
Introduction: The Problem of conditional forgiveness
Who is supposed to confess?
The Alternative to Confession
The meaning of confession
Confess to Whom?
Conclusion: Give glory to God!
Sin in the Christian Life Part 4 Conditional Forgiveness? 1:9-10
Problem: Are Christians forgiven or not?
Solution: only justification is absolute in this life – not sanctification
David’s example
Conclusion
Sin in the Christian Life Part 5 Dealing with Guilt 2:1
Introduction: The Problem of Guilt
I. Repentance
II. Fear: Sin less through heeding warnings
III. Faith – trust in His love and Advocacy
Sin in the Christian Life Part 6 The Atonement 2:2
The problem: Wrath
The Solution: Propitiation/Atonement
The price
The extent: Universal
Today is the day of salvation!
Appendix: Argument for Unlimited Atonement
Knowing God & Loving People Part 1 Knowing and Obeying 2:3-4
Knowledge of God
The relationship between knowing and obeying
Knowing God & Loving People Part 2 The Life of a True Christian 2:3-6
Review
I. Keeping
II. Loving
III. Remaining
Conclusion
Keep the Word!
Knowing God & Loving People Part 3 Imitating Jesus 2:6b
The claim requires the walk
So WDJD?
Conclusion
Knowing God & Loving People Part 4 Imitating Jesus (contd) 2:6b
Introduction
Review
A life of warfare
His role in the war (calling)
His alertness in the war (Vigilance)
His weapon of war (Scripture)
His endurance in the war (withstanding opposition)
Defeat in the war (and recovery)
Knowing God & Loving People Part 5 Imitating Jesus (contd) 2:6b
Introduction
Satisfied with God alone, yet did not isolate self
Joined in God’s affections
Especially loved believers and the lowly
Was a small group leader
Performed miracles
Gave up rights for others
Humiliation
Pursued joy
Delighted in corporate worship and fellowship
Conclusion
Knowing God & Loving People Part 6 The New Commandment 2:7-8
Introduction
The orthodoxy of the New Command (“Read my lips: No new doctrines”)
The context of the New Command
Definition of the New Command
Keeping the New Command
Activation of the New Command: Overlapping ages
Conclusion
Knowing God & Loving People Part 7 Lovers & Haters 2:9-11
Introduction
True light (claims vs. reality)
Lovers and Haters: Which are you?
Haters and Darkness
Lovers and light
Conclusion: Light is good – seek it (though love)
Overcoming Evil Part 1 Take Heart – You’re Winning! 2:12-14
Introduction
Children & Forgiveness
Fathers & Knowledge of Christ
Children & Knowledge of the Father
Young Men & Victory
Conclusion
Overcoming Evil Part 2 The Love God Hates 2:15-17
Introduction
Definitions
Reason 1: Incompatible with love for God
Reason #2 The world is transient
Conclusion
Overcoming Evil Part 3 The Antichrists are Here! 2:18
Introduction (warning about deception)
The Antichrist: Satan’s master plan of deception
The last hour – Crunch time
Overcoming Evil Part 4 The Anointing 2:19-21
Introduction (Remain!)
Those who failed to remain (departed from the Apostles’ doctrine) v.19
Your ability to remain: The Anointing v.20
Conclusion
Overcoming Evil Part 5 The Ultimate Decision 2:22-23
Introduction
The ultimate lie
The ultimate truth
The ultimate conflict
The ultimate decision
Overcoming Evil Part 6 Let the Word Remain in You 2:24-28
Step 3: Unashamed at His Coming
Step 2: Remain in Him
Step 1: Let the Word Remain in You
Conclusion
Overcoming Evil Part 7 Purifying Hope 2:29-3:3
Introduction
Verse 1 Children of God
Verse 2 Future Hope
Verse 3: Present Purification
Conclusion
Overcoming Evil: Part 8 Cosmic Treason  3:4-8
Introduction: Why is overcoming sin so hard?
Sin is lawlessness!
Satan’s mission
Jesus’ Mission
No Middle ground
Our Deliverer!
Overcoming Evil: Part 9 Christians Can’t Sin 3:4-9
Introduction: The false teaching
Christians can’t sin?
What is sin? Doing what God doesn’t like
What is righteousness? The activity of life from God
The meaning of Righteousness – That which rises from the life of God
No position without conduct
Conclusion
Overcoming Evil: Part 10 Cain or Christ? 1 John 3:10-18
Introduction
The way of Cain
The way of Christ
Conclusion
Overcoming Evil: Part 11 Self-Condemnation 3:19-20
Introduction:
The Stakes (Why self-condemnation is bad)
The Problem (self-condemnation)
The Solution (Convincing your heart)
Overcoming Evil: Part 12 Confident Prayer 3:21-23
Introduction:
The Promises (confidence and answered prayer)
The Condition
Reason
Conclusion
God Living in You: Part 1 Listening to the Spirit 3:24-4:6
INTRODUCTION: Assurance by the Spirit V.24
THE NEED TO DISCERN: The existence of false prophets 4:1
THE WAY TO DISCERN: Test the spirits VV.2-4
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DISCERNING (determines whether you are saved) vv.5-6
Conclusion: Assurance comes when the Spirit opens your eyes to the truth of the Gospel
God Living in You: Part 2 Let us Love One Another 4:7-11
Introduction
Motivation: Why do it?
Definition: What is it?
Conclusion: Love like God
God Living in You: Part 3 Knowing the Unseen God 4:11-15
Introduction
The Possibility of Knowing God - Verse 12
The Proof of Knowing God
The Purpose of Knowing God
Conclusion: How did God love you? (The Gospel)
God Living in You: Part 4 God Sent His Son as Savior 4:14-17
Introduction: The Coming Judgment
The Sender (Father)
The Savior (Son)
The saved
Conclusion
God Living in You: Part 5 Why You Cannot Love God without Loving His People 4:18-5:1
Loving God’s People = Proof You Love God
Why are love for God and love for brother inseparable?
Victory by Faith: Part 1 Delightful Obedience by Faith 5:2-4
Introduction
Obedience is proof of brother love
Obedience is not burdensome
Obedience is by faith
Conclusion: How to obtain faith
Victory by Faith: Part 2 The Water and the Blood 5:5-6a
Review
Intro
The object of faith – verse 5
The meaning of water and blood
The First Witness: the Water
The Second Witness: The Blood
Conclusion
Victory by Faith: Part 3 The Testimony of God 5:6b-10
Introduction: The voice of God
Review
The Illumination of the Testimony
The Superiority of the Testimony
Conclusion: Listen to the voice of God
Victory by Faith: Part 4 God’s Verdict on Your Verdict on God 5:10-13
Introduction: You are the one on trial
The Wrong Verdict
The Right Verdict
Conclusion
Victory by Faith: Part 5 Praying for a Sinning Brother 5:14-17
Introduction
The relationship of Intercession (Special access to God)
The Recipients of Intercession (Sinning brothers)
The Reason for Intercession (to demonstrate God’s favor)
Victory by Faith: Part 6 Satan Can’t Touch You, but Watch Out! 5:18-19
Introduction
Don’t Pray for the Dead
PROMISED PROTECTION FROM THE ENEMY
The benefits of the promise
The Means of the Promise
The Limitation of the Promise
The Comfort of the Promise
Conclusion
Victory by Faith: Part 7 Keep Yourself from Idols 5:20-21
Introduction
Protection through knowing God
Keep yourself from idols
Conclusion

Book Summary
Book Outline

Chapter one: fellowship with God, and the relationship of sin in the Christian life to that fellowship. 
Chapter two:
first half - the relationship between knowing God and loving people. (2:3-11)
second half - the relationship between loving God and our warfare against this world. John exposes exactly who the enemy is (2:12-23), and that victory comes through knowing and believing the truth of the gospel (2:24-28).
Chapter three:
first half - more detail about how sin and failure to love is incompatible with knowing God (2:29-3:18)
second half - the importance of confidence in prayer as we approach God. (3:19-23)

Chapter four: what it means to have God remain in you
first half - the work of the Holy Spirit in you (3:24-4:6)
second half - the love God has for you, and the outpouring of love toward others that results when you truly know Him (4:7-5:1)

Chapter five: our victory over the world through faith examined from all angles – showing us what faith is, how to strengthen it, what it says about your heart, and how God uses it to protect you.

Major Themes

Knowing God and sin (1:5-2:2, 2:29-3:18)
Knowing God & loving His people (2:2-11, 2;29-3:18, 4;7-5:1
Knowing God and warfare with the world and the devil (2:12-28, 5:1-21)
Knowing God and prayer (3:19-23, 5:14-18)
Knowing God and having fellowship with Him (1:1-4, 3:24-4:6)
Knowing God and faith (3:23-4:3, 5:4-15)

John wrote to teach us the basis of knowing God, the means, the activity, the implications, and the result of knowing God.

Fellowship with God Part 1 I Touched the Word of Life 1:1 

Summary: 1 John is a whole book about Christmas (the incarnation). The incarnation is worth celebrating! Jesus was from the beginning (is the ground of all being), and the Apostles heard, saw, and touched Him(!) John is arguing against error. The incarnation provides proof that not only encourages our hearts, but also shows us God as a self-revealing God (which is the only reason we can know Him). Both His priority of His glory and His love compel Him to reveal Himself (it is the best thing that could happen and the best thing for us for the most glorious thing to be seen and delighted in. 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life-- 2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us-- 3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Introduction
We Must Take Christmas Captive
Is the Incarnation Worthy of Celebration?
Introduction to 1 John: lofty goals
From the Beginning
The Ground of all Being
Seen, Touched, Heard
Scripture Twisting
Cerinthus
Eyewitness testimony
What is wonderful about the proof
We can know for sure
Self-revealing God
The Message is the Messenger
Jesus is all of God’s message to us
God’s self-revealing nature
God’s glory compels Him to show Himself
God’s love compels Him to show Himself

Introduction
We Must Take Christmas Captive
From time to time I get into discussions with people who say we should not celebrate Christmas because it is a pagan holiday. My response to that is December 25 is the day that the Lord has made, and any pagan who treads on that day is trespassing. And according to 2 Cor.10 it is our job to escort them off the premises of that day. 

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 For although we are walking in the flesh, we do not wage war in a fleshly way, 4 since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments 5 and every high-minded thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Most of the time you hear people quote verse five in the context of controlling your own thoughts and the principle does apply to that by implication, but that is not what Paul is talking about in the context. What Paul is talking about is the warfare going on between him and the false teachers. The false teachers present arguments and high-minded ideas that they raise up against the knowledge of God. Paul seizes those arguments and high-minded ideas, takes them prisoner, and forces them into obedience to Christ (by refuting and correcting them). That is spiritual warfare. Somebody comes along with an unbiblical argument and you demolish that argument by forcing it into obedience to Christ. They try to argue that the world created itself through evolution over billions of years, and we do spiritual warfare by taking the discussion and forcing it into compliance with the truth, which says God created the world in six days. They set up the idea that it is okay to kill unborn babies, or that religion is all a matter of opinion, or that all religions pray to the same God and lead to heaven, and we do spiritual warfare by refuting those arguments, exposing them as false, and forcing them into compliance with the truths about the sacredness of life, the absoluteness of truth, and the exclusiveness of the one, true God. That is what it means to take every thought captive. 

So if the ancient Babylonians come along and they want December 25 to be all about some nature goddess celebrated with drunken revelry, or the Romans want to worship Saturn, or European pagans want to worship a sun god on the Winter solstice, our job is not to take a look at those ungodly ideas and duck and run for cover. Treating December 25 as though it were somehow contaminated or tainted because of the pagan celebrations would be superstitious. Those pagan celebrations do not have any power to corrupt a day that the Lord has made. If someone wants to attach pagan ideas to one of God’s days, our job is to wrest that day out of their little pagan hands and force it into compliance with biblical truth, and I would say we have done a pretty fair job with Christmas. Yes, the battle still rages, and the enemy does all he can to inject as much secular garbage as he can with materialism and Santa Clause and all the rest, but in large measure Christmas is still mostly about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ in this culture. I went into a restaurant with Josiah the other day and while all these unbelievers are sitting around eating, there is music in the background about Jesus Christ the Lord reigning as King! Bless God for that! I love that! Easter is another pagan day we have done a fair job of snatching out of their hands – although not quite as successfully as Christmas. Halloween we really have some work to do. But all that to say there is no reason for us to shy away from December 25 or any other day. All the days are the Lord’s.
But then someone might respond back and say, “I realize there is nothing wrong with the day – but is celebrating the birth of Jesus really something we should be doing?” The Bible does not command us to celebrate the incarnation. In fact, we are not commanded to celebrate anything except Jesus’ death. But nor are we forbidden. God has given us great freedom in the forms of our worship. There is no command to celebrate the resurrection either, and yet, from the very beginning the Church did so by making the first day of the week their day of corporate worship. And that change, I believe, carries the stamp of divine approval in the way it is presented in Acts.
So when it comes to Christmas the real question is, “Is the incarnation worth celebrating?” (The word “incarnation” means “to take on flesh.” Christmas is a celebration of the fact that God the Son came to earth and took on human flesh. He became a man.)
Is the Incarnation Worthy of Celebration?
What can we learn from Scripture about whether or not that is something worthy of celebration?
Luke 2:8-14 In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, "Don't be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: 11 today a Savior, who is Messiah the Lord, was born for you in the city of David. 12 This will be the sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped snugly in cloth and lying in a manger." 13 Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: 14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people He favors!

When the incarnation happened it was celebrated in a manner never before seen in human history. A multitude of the heavenly host appeared in the sky praising God and saying “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people He favors!” This is not a common occurrence in Scripture. The word “host” means “army,” and God is called the Lord of hosts almost 300 times in the Old Testament. But had there ever been a time when anyone actually saw the heavenly host worshipping God like this? No. One time there was a prophet (Micaiah) who saw the heavenly host as part of a vision, but even in that vision they were not worshipping God or celebrating anything. 
So all through redemptive history we have heard about these hosts – the heavenly armies. But even with all the marvelous things that happened throughout the Old Testament there is never a time when Scripture records them appearing in the sky or anywhere else to celebrate anything. But when Jesus was born heaven exploded with joyful praise in such a way that it could be physically seen from earth. The birth of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world was a uniquely wonderful event. Is it worth celebrating? A great multitude of the heavenly host certainly thought so. These creatures had existed for thousands of years – ever since the creation – yet that night in the fields outside Bethlehem they found themselves doing something they had never done before that we know of – appearing to men and shouting praises to God in the highest because of what was taking place on earth. If we are going to take our cues from heaven I would say the incarnation is indeed something worth celebrating.
And celebrating with joy! Each holiday in our culture has taken on a particular mood. People want to be spooked on Halloween, and they want to relax on Labor Day, and they want to get serious and make resolutions on New Years Day; but more than anything Christmas is about joy. People say “merry Christmas.” That is right on. It is exactly as it should be, because it is a day when we celebrate the good news of great joy! The rejoicing of the world is a rejoicing of ignorance. They are blind to the real reason for joy, and so all their joy this time of year is hollow to say the least. They are like the rocks shouting praises to God – they have no understanding of what they are doing. But it is fitting nonetheless that the whole culture should be joyful at the celebration of the incarnation even if they do not understand what they are doing. 
My prayer for myself this Christmas season is that I will be one who does know what I am doing. Joyless Christians are a reproach on the name of Christ, and I do not want to be a reproach on His name. I want to be full of joy when I think about the marvelous truth of eternal God coming to earth and taking on human flesh. God save us from thinking of it as a mere doctrine or mere historical event in a way that fails to excite our affections with joy. May God open our eyes to all the marvelous wonders that exist because of the incarnation. Only because of the incarnation can we know God. Only because of Jesus’ coming into this world can our sins be forgiven. Only through the Son of God taking on human flesh can you have any of the blessings God offers; and through the incarnation we have ALL the blessings He offers – every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms! All year long we rejoice in countless different blessings from God – experiences of His faithfulness, grace, guidance, encouragement, forgiveness, holiness, food-likeness, power, renewal, life-giving love, mercy, patience, illumination, refuge; and all of it – every bit of joy from every one of those and countless others – all of it comes only because the Son of God stripped off His heavenly robes of splendor and took on human flesh, being made in the form of a servant. And now He is the ideal High Priest who can sympathize with you in all your weaknesses because He learned obedience through suffering and was tempted in every way, just as you are, yet was without sin.
Introduction to 1 John: lofty goals
1 John is an amazing book. He starts out by saying that the purpose of his declaration is so that we can have fellowship with him, and his fellowship is with God; (1:3) Then he says he writes to make his joy complete; (1:4) Then he says he writes so that we will not sin; (2:1) And at the end of the book he says that he writes so that we may know that we have eternal life. (5:13) Does that motivate you to want to study this book? Anybody here want to sin less? Anybody interested in having greater assurance of your salvation? Does the idea of fullness of joy appeal to anyone here? How about fellowship with God? John has some incredibly lofty goals. Some people write with the goal of just getting published. An established author might have a goal of getting on the best seller list. I had a professor who had a goal of writing a book that would still be in print 100 years from now. Some goals are loftier than others. John’s is about as lofty as they come. Just to get someone like me to sin less would be a feat all by itself. But add to that assurance, fullness of joy, and fellowship with God and you are talking about a book that, if it achieves its goal, will make a massive difference in a person’s life. So what do you think? How likely do you think it is that John’s goals will be reached in your case? If you are skeptical, remember that it was the Holy Spirit who inspired those goals. They are not just John’s goals; they are God’s goals. And if you think you are too sinful, just ask yourself – what do you think is more powerful: the sinfulness of your flesh or the power of God? So let’s jump in to this book with eager, excited, hopeful hearts.

From the Beginning 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands…

The normal pattern of a sentence, both in English and in Greek, is to put the subject first, then the verbal part, then the object. For example, “We proclaim that which I have seen…
 Subject Verb Object
 	 “I proclaim that which I have seen”
That’s the normal way to do it. But John really, really wants to emphasize the object of his first sentence. So he does not even say the “We proclaim” part until verse three. He just wants to fix your attention on what it is that is being proclaimed. And in verse one he is going to point out three things about the object of his proclamation. 
The Ground of all Being
First, it was from the beginning.
That which was from the beginning

The phrase “from the beginning,” when it applies to God, refers to the ultimate beginning – the Genesis 1:1 beginning. The first thing we need to know about what John is talking about is that He was there in eternity past. He existed before anything else existed. That which is there at the very beginning before creation must be the ground of all being. Nothing came before Him to bring Him into existence, which means He must be the One and only being who has the power of self-existence. The power of self-existence is the ability to keep yourself in existence without any help from anyone or anything. Nothing else in the creation has that power. Nothing made itself – nothing. No house built itself. There is no tree that did not come from a seed, no man who did not come from parents, no picture that painted itself - everything and everyone is dependent on something that came before it for it to exist, and not just to come into existence, but to continue to exist. Right now the Self-Existent One is holding and sustaining the existence of all other things. If He stopped doing that for one second everything would instantly go out of existence.
And beyond self-existence, the One who was there at the beginning also is the ground not only of all being, but also of everything else. He is the ground of all truth. Any truth claim that doesn’t agree with Him is wrong – period. He is the standard for everything. Beauty is not a matter of opinion or taste, something is beautiful or not beautiful inasmuch as it resembles His beauty. He is the standard for morality, for truth, for goodness, for life – for everything. He is the ground of all being. And that makes Him the ultimate authority, the greatest power, and the most wonderful and most marvelous thing in existence or that could possibly exist.
John is not one to start with small talk and slowly ramp up to bigger issues. Right out of the hatch he just starts out with about as big a concept as there is - that which was from the beginning. And if you understand the meaning of that first phrase, the rest of the verse should just make your jaw drop to the floor.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands (!)

Do you realize how outlandish this claim is that John is making? He is saying, “Hey, you know the ultimate Ground of all Being, who was there before time began and who created all things and upholds the existence of all things, and who is the supreme Authority over all things? Well, I’ve touch Him, listened to Him, saw him with my own two eyes, talked to Him, hung out with Him. Do you realize what a spectacularly massive claim that is? And it would be totally unbelievable, and we would dismiss it out of hand if it were like I just said it, because just now I did not say it quite the same as John said it. John did not say “which I have touched with my hands.” He said, “Which we have touched with our hands.” If one person starts making wild claims we tend to just write him off if it cannot be verified or corroborated. But once someone says “we” – then you can do a little investigation. You can find out if these others really exist, and how many there were, and how reliable they are, and if their stories match, etc. So John starts out with some huge claims, but then immediately points to evidence to support the claims.

Seen, Touched, Heard
Scripture Twisting
It is pretty obvious right from the start that John is arguing against somebody in this book. In the Gospel John just said the Word became flesh and left it at that. That is really all you need to say if you want to communicate the idea that the Son of God took on physical, human flesh – right? It used to be – back when John wrote his Gospel. But now some false teaching has arisen, and false teachers can be some pretty ingenious people. They can take a phrase like, “The Word became flesh,” and give you a 45 minute talk on it, and by the time they are done the phrase ends up meaning something like, “The Word did not become flesh.”

Cerinthus
Cerinthus did that sort of thing. He was a contemporary of John, and early writers said that John wrote in order to refute Cerinthus’ teaching. According to Irenaeus, John once left a building where he saw Cerinthus saying, "Let us flee, lest the building fall down; for Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is inside!” Cerinthus rejected all of Paul’s letters and used a twisted version of the Gospel of Matthew and parts of Mark for his scriptures. He taught that Jesus was the physical son of Joseph, and that the “eon Christ’ came upon Jesus at His baptism but then took off before the cross. So Jesus was the Christ only between His baptism and the cross. (So you have a mere human being dying on the cross. What in the world good does that do anybody?)
This is the kind of thing false teachers do.

2 Peter 3:16 The ignorant and unstable twist [Paul’s writings] to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures.

The picture is of putting the Scriptures on the rack and torturing them until they “break” and say what you want them to say. So John is not going to just say, “The Word became flesh.” He is going to make sure there can be absolutely no mistake. He says “We literally heard Him speaking.” “We saw Him…with our eyes.” Not some kind of spiritual perception or enlightenment – actual, physical seeing with physical eyeballs. We observed Him. We touched Him – not in some metaphorical way – with our hands. It is very obvious that John is arguing against an error here and he wants to leave zero possibility of misinterpretation on this point.
Eyewitness testimony
Christianity is a religion that rests on the foundation of eyewitness testimony.
 
2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life

John is testifying like an eyewitness in a court of law. He was there. The whole discussion today about the quest for the historical Jesus is so incredibly absurd. What these Jesus Seminar people, and the Divinci Code types are doing is saying, “We are going to disregard everything that the actual eyewitnesses say happened, and we are going to speculate about what we think must have happened.” It is as if you were in a courtroom, and the case is about a robbery that took place, and there are ten experts and one eyewitness. And the experts are all coming up with all kinds of theories about what probably happened based on their expertise. “My profile of this type of robber shows that what he would have done is come in the back door and threaten the owner with a knife…” And the next guy says, “My instincts tell me he came in through the roof….” And the next guy says, “No, I think it was a con job. He just tricked the owner into giving him money in some sort of scam.” And they are all going on and on, and meanwhile the eyewitness is sitting there shaking his head. Finally he speaks up and says, “Hey – I was there in the store. I saw the whole thing. He walked in the front door, pointed a gun at the clerk, took money out of the drawer, and ran off.”
John speaks up here in the hubbub of all these crazy after-the-fact theories flying around and says, “Hey, we were there. We knew Him personally. We hung out with Him for years. We heard the words come out of His mouth. Here’s what happened…”

What is wonderful about the proof
We can know for sure 
So let’s talk about what is so wonderful about all this empirical, eyewitness testimony. God could have taken another approach. He could have taken the “appear in a vision to one single man in a cave” approach. No corroborating evidence, no eyewitnesses, no other evidence at all – just believe that this one man’s account of his vision is the truth of God and base your eternal destiny on it.
Of all the major world religions there are really only three that base their credibility on historical events: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Those three religions claim to be valid if and only if certain events actually took place in history. And all three religions would admit that if those events did not take place, then the religion is invalid. All the other religions are basically philosophies, and they claim to be true apart from whether or not their version of history is correct. Confucianism, for example, is a set of philosophical maxims. Whether or not those maxims are true or untrue has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Confucius ever even lived. If you could prove that Confucius never existed it would have zero effect on that religion. The same is true for Shintoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Baha’i, and Jainism. All those religions basically just tell you, “Trust me – this is true.” And if you question, “How do I know for sure that it is true?” the only response is, “Trust me – it is.” And if you say, “How do I know your opinion about truth is trustworthy?” the response is, “Trust me – it is.” Praise God that He does not ask us to base our eternal destiny on that!
The three history-based world religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) are all valid or invalid based on whether their version of the record of Jesus’ life is accurate. For Christianity to be true the gospel accounts of Jesus performing miracles, dying on the cross, and rising from the dead according to prophecy all have to be true. If those events did not happen then we are to be pitied more than all men because we are a bunch of blind fools. For modern Judaism to be valid they have to be right about their theory that Jesus did not fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah. And for Islam to be valid they would have to be right about their theory that Jesus never claimed to be God, never claimed to be pre-existent before His birth, never claimed to come from heaven, did not have the power to perform miracles, never died on the cross, and never rose from the dead.
So, what evidence has Islam adduced to prove their version of history, (which was written 600 years after the fact), is correct and all the ancient eyewitness accounts are incorrect? All they offer is one testimony of one man (a man of very questionable integrity), who claims that something appeared to him when he was by himself in a cave. That’s it. No miracle claims, no resurrection, nothing that can be tested or investigated, no witnesses – just a guy claiming to have an experience in a cave. 
What about Christianity? What proof do we have that our version of history is correct? What would happen if we took everything in the Bible that could not be validated or corroborated according to the standards of modern historical scholarship, and threw it out? If we looked only at the things that are accepted by the majority of secular, unbelieving, non-Christian scholars, what would we have? There is a consensus among secular scholars that the following are all true and historically provable: There was a man named Jesus who did live during the time the Bible claims He did and He was from Nazareth. He claimed that He was the Son of God and that He would rise from the dead. He was crucified in Palestine under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar at Passover time. He was buried in the tomb of a rich man, and the tomb was guarded by Rome. On the third day that tomb was unexpectedly empty. Initially not even His followers believed – even when they saw the empty tomb. Then something happened that convinced His disciples and thousands of other Jews and Gentiles that He rose from the dead and was alive. They were so convinced that they were willing to die in great numbers for their belief. 
All of that we know from history. It requires no faith in the Bible as God’s Word at all. Those are the facts. And the only scenario that fits all those facts is that the resurrection actually happened. Every other theory that has been set forth is easily defeated, so we can prove the resurrection without assuming the Bible to be God’s Word. And the main thing that convinces all those secular scholars of those facts that I listed is the nature of the eyewitness testimony. 
So all that is to say that these things John is talking about – the seeing and hearing and touching of the resurrected Jesus by multiple, reliable eyewitnesses, are very important. That is how we know for sure that Christianity is true. God did not reveal the truth to one man in a cave somewhere. He did it out in the open, where everyone could see, and with such absolute undeniable show of divine power than no one could argue.
It is because of the incarnation that we can know for sure what the truth is. It is because He became seeable and feelabel and hearable. And why is all this proof important? It helps us feel more confident in what we believe, and that is wonderful – but the significance of the proof goes way beyond just that. The reason it is so wonderful is because of what it shows us about the nature of God.
Self-revealing God
The Message is the Messenger
Jesus is called the Word of God. Words are for communicating. When Scripture calls Jesus the Word it means He is God’s communication to us. The commentators debate about why it says “That which was from the beginning” instead of “He who was from the beginning.” Using the neuter in place of the masculine is a technique John tends to use when he is referring to more than the mere personhood of someone. John is speaking of Jesus both as a person – the messenger from God, and the message itself. Jesus did not come to us with a message from God. Jesus came to us as the Message from God.

Jesus is all of God’s message to us
Jesus is all God has to say to us. There is nothing else. He is not part of God’s message – He is all of God’s message.

Hebrews 1:1-2 Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. 2 In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son

No more speaking through prophets at various times and in various ways. Now it is just His Son.

God’s self-revealing nature
So now let’s consider this amazing truth, - that God has spoken to us. Why? Why would God bother to communicate something to us? Who made Him do that? No one. So then what compelled Him to do it? God has a good reason for everything He does, so what was it that made Him decided to reveal Himself to sinful man? The same thing that compels Him to do absolutely everything He does – His own nature. He did it because He is, by nature, a self-revealing God. If that were not part of His nature we could know nothing at all about Him – zero. No matter how hard we thought, no matter how deeply we studied, no matter how much we investigated, there is no way we could have discovered even one single fact about God. We would never be able to build a rocket that could blast us into heaven so we could find Him. No amount of thinking or reasoning or philosophy could cause us to realize anything true about Him. Apart from divine self-revelation there could be no knowledge of God at all – not even through the creation.
But God is a communicator. John 1 does not say, “In the beginning was the Thought, and the Thought was with God and the Thought was God.” He is described as Word and not thought because thoughts just sit there in your head; words go out of your mouth into someone else’s head. It is in God’s nature to show Himself to us. At least two parts of His nature compel Him to do that.

God’s glory compels Him to show Himself
What is the greatest thing that could possibly take place in the Universe? The absolute best thing and most important thing would be for God to be glorified. Nothing is better than that. If you think anything is better than that, then you are an idolater. That is, if you think something or someone else is more worthy of being honored than God, then you are holding that thing up as greater than God, and that is idolatry. Now, is God an idolater? Does God hold anything in this universe up as being more worthy of glory and honor and praise than His own name? No – God is not an idolater. 

Isaiah 42:8 I am Yahweh, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, or my praise to idols.

Uppermost in God’s own affections is His own glory. So if nothing is more important than the glorification and honoring of God, and God only does what is best, then you would expect that God would do whatever would bring Him the most glory and honor, right? And that is exactly what He does. He does that which will bring Him the greatest honor in this world. And what brings Him the greatest honor is when He shows Himself to created beings and those created beings respond to what they see with great delight. The thing that honors my wife the most is not just when she looks really good. What honors her even more is when she looks really good and I see her and say, “Wow!” What honors God the most is when His creatures see Him and say “Wow!”, and prefer that experience to any other joy. And so God’s delight in His own glory compels Him to expose that glory to His people.

God’s love compels Him to show Himself 
But that is not the only part of His character that compels Him to show His glory. Sometimes people recoil at the idea of God glorifying Himself, or desiring that He be made much of, because if a human being does that it is selfish and unloving. If I try to get everyone to focus on me and praise me and make much of me I am being selfish, and for me to be selfish is unloving. It is unloving because, frankly, delighting in me and making much of me, and beholding all my greatness is not really much of an experience. It is definitely not the best thing that could happen to you. So for me to pursue that is unloving – it is a failure on my part to care about your best interests. 
But God is different. For God, “selfishness,” in that sense, is the most loving thing He could do. Here’s why: If you owned the Grand Canyon and you had a giant curtain pulled in front of it for privacy, the most loving thing you could do for me would be to open up the curtain and let me see it, because it is such a delightful and awesome thing to behold. And if you were the Grand Canyon, and you somehow had a mind and control over the curtain, the most loving thing you could do would be to open up the curtain and allow yourself to be seen. If God is indeed glorious and marvelous, which He is, then if He is going to be a loving being He has to show Himself and expose His glory.
The best thing that could ever happen to you would be to catch a glimpse of His glory – like David did in Ps.63 when he says…

Psalm 63:2 So I gaze on You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.

David wrote that when he was in the desert. He could see a little bit of God’s power and glory in the sky and in the creation out in the desert, but he wanted a much greater experience of God’s power and glory – the kind that is only experienced in the presence of God in His sanctuary. It is not talking about a vision. It is talking about an experience of God’s presence in which the eyes of your heart are opened up to be able to see what is so glorious about some truth you have always known about God but that never got you very excited. It never got you very excited because your eyes have not been opened to what is glorious about it. Every truth about God, if your eyes were opened to it, would fill you with ecstatic, unbounded joy. The reason we do not find ourselves moved to tears and literally jumping up and down and shouting and dancing for joy when we read about God in the Scriptures, is only because our eyes are veiled from the marvelousness of what God is like. And the best thing that could ever happen to you would be for that veil to be lifted a little more. The best thing that could ever happen to your kids would be for their eyes to be opened up a little more to the glory of God. The biggest favor you could ever do your best friend, or your husband or wife, is to help open their eyes to see a greater glimpse of the spectacular vistas of God’s glory.
Seeing God’s glory transforms the heart (2 Cor.3:18); seeing God’s glory fills up your heart with joy so extreme that it can drown out even the most severe suffering (Job 33:26); seeing God’s glory satisfies all longings and desires of the soul so that it is content and sated and full and satisfied (Ps.17:15). Having your eyes opened a little wider to His glory is the best thing that could possibly happen to you. So not only does God’s glory compel Him to reveal Himself to us, but His love also compels Him to do it.
This Christmas season, every time you are reminded of Christmas let it be a memory cue of the fact that the thing we are celebrating – the incarnation, not only gives us certainty and confidence that what we believe is true, but it also shows us that God is a self-revealing God. And that revelation is the best thing that could ever happen to us, if our eyes were just opened wider to it. Let’s turn every ring of every jingle bell, every Christmas light, every gift and tree and decoration, let it all set off the same prayer in our hearts: “Dear Lord Jesus – open the eyes of my heart to see Your glory!” 

Benediction: Ephesians 1:16 - 19 I never stop giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. 

Fellowship with God Part 2 The Word of Life 1:1b-2

Summary: Jesus is the Word (communication) of (who gives) life (sensitivity, growth, health, strength, and liveliness). The greatest activity imaginable was the interactions of fellowship between the Godhead (subtract all the activity of the creation from all activity that goes on and it is like subtracting a molecule from a galaxy). The only way for that life of God to be known to and experienced by man was for the Word to become flesh and bring it to us. It is realized now through Christ (we can be with the Father in fellowship, experiencing Christ as a refuge and Shepherd which brings us ever more abundant measures of that life). 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life-- 2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us-- 3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Introduction
The meaning of life
Spiritual Life
Sensitivity
Growth
Health
Strength
Liveliness
The Origin of the Life
The way to the Father
How to get more life: Be shepherded
Devotionals

Introduction
When the Magi came from the east and asked Herod where the prophesied king of the Jews was to be born, Herod did not know so he called together the chief priests and asked them. They knew right away that it would be in Bethlehem. How did they know the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem? They knew because of the prophecy in Micah 5.

Micah 5:2-4 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." 

4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.

(Your translation might say “live securely,” but the word “securely” is not in the Hebrew – they get that from the context.) Literally it just says, “They will live (or dwell).” It struck me this week how similar the beginning of 1 John is to this prophecy about the birth of Jesus. 

Micah 5:2-4 "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." 

4 He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.
-		
1 John 1:1

That which was from the beginning, 

which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life-- 
-		

Micah prophesied about the Messiah who would be born in Bethlehem in the distant future from Micah’s point of view, yet when He arrives His origins will have been from the distant past. Who ever heard of a baby being born in the future who goes way back to ancient times? John’s way of saying the same thing is “He was from the beginning.” Micah says He will come to be a Shepherd, and under His reign His people will live. John says He is the Word from God that gives life.
What makes the message of the birth of Christ into the world such good news of such great joy? The fact that He is from of old – before ancient times – with the Father from the beginning because that means He is eternal, which means He is the source of life. He makes His people live.
So Christmas is really all about life. The baby prophesied to be born in Bethlehem was born to give His people the very life of God.

John 10:10 I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance.

Last week we saw that John begins this epistle with a statement that he and the rest of the Apostles were proclaiming something and in verse one John tells us three very important things about what it is they are proclaiming. John twists the whole sentence structure around into what one commentator called “a grammatical tangle”. And he did that because he wanted to press into our thinking three crucial truths about what they were proclaiming. The first two of those we looked at last time: He was from the beginning, and there was empirical, eye-witness proof of His full humanity and His teaching. The third point appears at the end of verse one.

A. That which was from the beginning, 
B. which we have heard … touched with our hands, 
C. concerning the Word of life

So the third truth John wants to emphasize is that He is the Word of life. What does it mean that Jesus is the Word of life? A word is a communication. Jesus is the communication of a message from God to us; and that communication gives us a spiritual benefit that is best described by the word “life.” So let us think through: “Why did he pick the word “life” to describe this spiritual benefit that comes to us through Jesus Christ?” In what way is it like life?

The meaning of life
To answer that we need to think through what life is. What is life? Is it just not being dead? John 10:10 says Jesus came that we might have life in abundance. He came so that we would not only have life, but that we would have a whole lot of it. If life is just not being dead then you would not think there would be degrees. What does it mean to have a whole lot of not being dead?
Maybe a more helpful way to think about it is to realize that living is the opposite of dying. So think of it this way: “If someone is in the process of dying, what is it that he is losing?” Because whatever it is he is losing – that is life. If a person is sick and dying, what is happening? You could add to this list, but let me just give you a sample to help get your thinking started: 
1. A person who is dying is declining in strength – he keeps getting weaker and weaker.
2. He is declining in health – the various parts of him are not working right and keep getting worse.
3. He is not growing. 
The process of life is a process of growth – both in physical and non-physical ways. Bones getting stronger, muscles getting tougher, mental capacity enlarging. Part of life is making progress in the various functions of personhood. Life is an expanding process. When you grow up you go from your world being a crib, to a whole house, to a neighborhood, to a school, to a city - all through life you keep discovering new things, going new places, being exposed to new ideas. One of the most delightful things in life is meeting some really cool new person – someone totally different from anyone else you know. Life is ever expanding new experiences – new jobs, new places. Life is an exploration and God has given us room to explore in so many different categories - more room in each category than you could ever finish exploring in ten lifetimes. So part of life is the expansion of your world and your capacities - growth. 
4. It is almost a tautology to say that people who are dying are declining in liveliness – energy, motivation, joy, hope, passion. 
The word “lively” is a variation of the word “life,” because that is what liveliness is – life! When you see kids running around and jumping and playing and laughing you think, They are full of life. When you see someone moping around in the doldrums, staying in bed all day long, never going outside the house – no energy, no joy; the last thing you would say is, “Wow – now that is really living!” You would probably say something more like, “He’s dead to the world.” So energy, joy, hope, motivation, liveliness – those are all part of life. 
5. Another thing that declines as you die is sensation and sensitivity.
Alertness is part of life. Dullness is part of death. A person who is dying will begin to experience a decline in sensitivity to the world around him. His eyesight will fade, hearing, smell, taste – it all starts to decline until, when death occurs, there is no sensitivity to any stimulus at all.
All of that is life. So when John wants to tell us about this spiritual benefit that we receive from Jesus Christ, he uses a word that describes things like strength, health, growth, liveliness, and sensitivity. Those are the kinds of things you get when you receive communication from God. Life is more than just having a pulse. It is more than just existence. Life is human existence as it is supposed to be. Life is ideal human existence. And that is why Jesus can talk about abundant life. Abundant life is a whole lot of liveliness and strength and health and growth and sensation and joy and energy and motivation and progress and increase.
The Old Testament way of describing all that is with the concept of thriving or flourishing or fruitfulness. According to Psalm one those who delight in the law of the LORD will be…

Psalm 1:3-4 … like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. 4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.

That’s life – flourishing like a healthy tree compared to dried up chaff.

Isaiah 44:3-4 I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring … 4 They will spring up like grass in a meadow, like poplar trees by flowing streams.

Jeremiah 17:5-8 This is what the LORD says: "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength … 6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. 7 "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. 8 He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."

Isaiah 58:11 he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land …You will be like a well-watered garden.

That is life.

Spiritual Life
Now, when the world thinks about life, they think of all those things in temporal terms only. But thriving and fruitfulness and prosperity are not mainly about earthly things. You could have the body of an Olympic athlete, the bank account of Bill Gates, win a Nobel prize for your intelligence, be elected President of the United States, and reach the pinnacle of human achievement in every area of earthly things; but if you are dead to spiritual things than you are way more dead than you are alive. Jesus taught that anyone who is not a follower of Him is dead.

Matthew 8:21-22 Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 22 But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."

Let the spiritually dead people take care of burying each other when they die physically. When Jesus made that remark He was saying that everyone who is not a follower of Him is spiritually dead. So let’s think through what it means to experience abundance of life spiritually. 
Sensitivity
Let’s start with sensitivity. When God communicates what is in His heart into your heart by His Son Jesus Christ, you receive spiritual sensitivity. You go from death to life and for the first time you are able to interact with God. The eyes of your heart are opened to how beautiful He is, and Scripture goes from just being print on a page to being delightful, sweet, strengthening, comforting, encouraging, life-giving sustenance from God. Things that God says are true begin to seem true. You become aware of spiritual things that you were completely oblivious to before.
And as you gain more abundant life all those sensitivities increase. Instead of good things making you a little bit happy they make you really happy. Instead of having faint inklings of insight you have clear, vivid understanding of truth. You become more discerning. If you can imagine an expert outdoorsman, guiding you through a forest - He says, “There’s the trail” and for the life of you, you cannot see how he can tell. You do not see a single stick moved or blade of grass bent. But his awareness and sensitivities to all kinds of details are so acute that he can discern and respond to realities that you are oblivious to. That is how you become spiritually when you increase in spiritual life.
And I think the principle also applies in a negative way. You become more sensitive to bad things as well. Sins that you used to shrug off as no big deal now crush you and break your heart and reduce you to tears of repentance before God. That is part of being alive – the ability to be sensitive to disaster. The pain of other people that you used to not even notice now stabs your heart with deep, throbbing pains of compassion. Increased life not only cranks up the volume of your joy, it also intensifies the experience of pain. When Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly, part of that means greater, more abundant suffering. (But it also means greater, more abundant joy and strength and health. And it is far better to have big pain along with huge joy and strength than to have little pain with tiny joy and strength.) 
Growth
Another part of abundant life is abundant growth. Life in Christ is a life of ever-expanding exploration of the wonders of God’s goodness. We grow not only by increasing in virtue and knowledge, but in every kind of good increase. Our joy enlarges, our experiences of God increase in both frequency and intensity, our usefulness expands.
When life is not abundant there is stagnation. We all like a certain amount of stability and steadiness in life, but too much sameness makes life so boring that it is hardly life. When life stagnates and comes to a standstill that is more like death than life. Abundant life is expansive, increasing, improving, life. It is marked by progress. If you are not making very much spiritual progress the problem is not enough life.
Health
Another aspect of life is health. Abundant life from Christ is a situation in which all the parts of you are in good working order. Physical health is when your heart and lungs and arms and eyes and fingers are all in optimal working order. Spiritual health is when all the various spiritual parts of you are in optimal working order. Your mind has the right amount of interest and curiosity and intelligence. Your memory retains the right things and forgets the right things. You remember God’s Word and forget people’s faults – that is a healthy memory that is working properly. Your imagination is in good health - it gravitates toward wonderful things and penetrates to the depths of the things of God. Your soul craves the nearness of God above all things. Your heart loves what God loves and hates what God hates. Your inner man treasures what is truly treasure and despises what is worthless. 
If our immaterial parts suddenly became our physical parts right now, how many of us would end up in the hospital? Some of us have a compound fracture of the part of us that is supposed to be steadfast in suffering – a fracture of the perseverance bone. Others would be admitted to the hospital for massive “heart” failure – inability to be compassionate when others are hurting. Others for extreme nearsightedness – inability to focus on anything but this earth. Others would have to go in for treatment of a severe joy imbalance. 
Abundant life is a whole lot of health in all your parts. That is the picture we get in Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel 37 is a wonderful place to learn about the definition of life. That is the dry bones chapter. Israel is pictured as a valley full of dead, dried up bones; and God brings them back to life. They get muscles and tendons and skin and the breath of life breathed into them. God then interprets all the life symbolism for us starting in verse 23:

23 They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 24 "'My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. 

Life – skin on the bones and air in the lungs – means preferring Got to idols, no more backsliding, cleansing, faithfulness to God, loyalty to the Son of David, and obeying God’s laws and decrees. In other words, life is holiness. That is why John says…

1 John 3:14-15 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

If life is obedience to God’s commands, and the greatest commandment is love, then life is an existence of being a lover of people. 
Life is spiritual health. The sin in our lives is due to unhealthy parts. Messed up hearts, defective souls, diseased minds, broken affections, a defiled tongue, blind eyes, overfed flesh, underfed spirit, stopped up ears, deadened taste buds. Jesus came to give us abundant life, which involves getting all those parts working properly, and the better they are working the more abundant the life.
Strength
And with health comes strength – spiritual strength. From a human standpoint the spiritual strength looks like weakness. It is a life of not having anywhere near enough resources in yourself to do what you need to do, and being 100% dependent on God in a state of total neediness. And the result is unstoppable spiritual power from God in our lives. Power to accomplish mighty tasks in His kingdom. Power to withstand unspeakable pain and suffering with joy. That power is like the working of His mighty strength which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him in the heavenly realms far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion. The abundant life is a life of strength. 
Liveliness
And when you have all that you have spiritual liveliness. You have motivation. 

2 Corinthians 5:14 For Christ's love compels us.

1 Corinthians 9:16 I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!

You have energy.

Colossians 1:29 To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

You have zeal – boiling with fervor.

Romans 12:11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

You have joy.

Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; you fill me with joy in your presence

The path of life is a path of joy in God’s presence. Abundant life is a whole lot of spiritual energy and delight and hope and enthusiasm and motivation and zeal and joy. And this little child whose birth we celebrate is the Word of life. In fact, the reason He became a child was to bring the life of God from heaven to earth.

The Origin of the Life
Take a look at verse two.

2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father.

In order for us to be able to appreciate the incarnation we have to give some thought to the meaning of this phrase “with the Father.” The phrase “with the Father” is the same as in chapter one of the Gospel of John where it says…

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God

The word translated “with” is pros, which normally means “toward.” The Word, the Son of God, was toward the Father. The Greek scholars assure us that the word pros, in a context like this, is a relational term. The point is not geographical proximity. “With the Father” is not about location. The point is not that He was close by the place where God was; but that He was oriented toward God relationally. It is a statement about relational closeness and interaction between the Father and the Son. And John makes a point of that relational closeness in the opening of His gospel and in the opening of his epistle. It is an important point. The Word was with God and the Word was God. Jesus is eternal God. He has existed forever as eternal God, and He created all things. He is not one-third of God. If you have Jesus Christ in the room you have 100% of God there. The same goes for the Father and the Holy Spirit. All three persons are 100% God – none of them lack any aspect of deity.
And yet, the statement that the Son was with, or relationally close to and oriented toward the Father shows that there is a distinction between the persons of the Trinity. God is not sometimes in His Father costume and sometimes in His Son costume and sometimes in His Spirit costume. The Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct persons. When I say “distinct” I mean they can talk to one another and look at one another and enjoy one another’s company. When Jesus prayed to the Father He was not praying to Himself. It was one distinct person speaking to another distinct person. And yet, there is only one God – not three. And if you don’t understand how that works – then you’ve got it! If it makes perfect sense to you and you can think of a whole lot of illustrations of other things that are like that – I doubt you understand what the Bible is saying.
Now let’s think for a minute about the Son being with the Father throughout eternity past. What were they doing? When we try to think of eternity past, prior to the creation of anything, it seems strange to think of God just sitting there (actually, sitting nowhere since space did not exist yet) doing nothing for all eternity. If there are no people, and no angels, and no animals or earth or stars or any created thing – it seems like God’s existence would be extremely dull to say the least. But that kind of thinking shows how skewed our perspective is. It shows that we think importance and meaning come from the creation. They do not.
When someone asked Augustine the question, “What was God doing before He created the world?” Augustine’s answer was: “Perhaps He was preparing hell for people who stick their noses into mysteries.” But actually, it is not a complete mystery. What was God doing before the creation? I assure you He was not doing nothing. There was interaction between the persons of the Trinity. The Father and Spirit and Son were enjoying fellowship. They loved one another and communicated with one another and beheld one another’s glory and enjoyed one another. And if you think, “Three persons enjoying one another? That sounds like it would get boring after a while”- if you think that way you have way too low a view of the glory of God. That activity of the persons of the godhead interacting with one another is infinitely greater and more important than all the activity of the entire creation put together. If you take all the activity there is - every single thing that is happening on earth, all that is going on with human beings, all that is going on with the created world, all that is going on with the angels and demons and other spiritual beings., and all that is going on between the members of the Trinity - everything; if you take all that activity and subtract the activity of the creation (so that all you have is the interactions between the Trinity), that is like taking a galaxy and subtracting one molecule.
When Jesus was in the middle of all that was happening on earth during His earthly life, what did He say?

John 17:5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

He was excited to return to the Father – to that fantastic situation He was in before the creation of anything. Yes, there is a lot of great stuff going on down here on earth, but compared to being in the presence of the Father it is nothing. Jesus lived the greatest, most meaningful life on earth that could ever be lived, and yet compared to being with the Father this place is so boring, and so dull and simplistic and shallow and empty and blah; He just could not wait to get back to where things are really happening. The joy of returning to the Father was the fixation of all Jesus’ attention.

John 13:1 It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.

John 14:12 … I am going to the Father.

John 16:10 …I am going to the Father

John 16:28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.

John 14:28 If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father 

John 20:17 Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father’ 

Why was He so excited about returning to the Father? Because of the interaction of love between them.

John 10:17 my Father loves me

John 3:35 The Father loves the Son

John 5:20 the Father loves the Son

John 14:31 I love the Father

John 15:9 the Father has loved me

John 17:24 Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

Oh, that interaction of love that Jesus enjoyed before anything or any person was ever created - it was so exciting and thrilling and fantastic and interesting and meaningful and delightful and complex and satisfying, that the greatest, highest wish Jesus ever had for us was that we would get in on what was going on between the members of the Trinity throughout eternity past. That is more exciting, more thrilling, more meaningful, more interesting, more awesome, more satisfying than anything you have ever done or ever dreamed of doing. The life of God in heaven is infinitely greater and more marvelous than all of the best things on earth all put together. 
And all that breathtaking, unspeakable, indescribable stuff that was going on in heaven among the godhead- you could sum it all up with the term “life.” That is the life of God and that life was in heaven – totally separated from the creation. And there was one way and one way only that even the slightest taste of that life that God enjoyed throughout eternity past could be brought from heaven down to earth and experienced by human beings. The only way was for the embodiment of that life – of God Himself - to become a man and communicate that life to us. Now, let’s talk about how that works.
The way to the Father
The night before Jesus died He had an amazing conversation with His Disciples. He told them He was going away, and that they knew the way to where He was going.

John 14:4-7 You know the way to the place where I am going." 5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" 

Now, where was it that Jesus was going? (To the Father in heaven) So what He is saying is, “You guys already know how to get to the Father.” Thomas says, “How can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

It seems like the most natural thing to have said would be this: Thomas says, “How can we know the way?” and Jesus responds: “I am the way. No one can come to the Father except through me.” But instead of just saying that, Jesus throws in “truth” and “life.” “Way,” all by itself, is too ambiguous. Jesus as the way does not say enough so He fills out the idea by saying that the only way to get to the Father is to follow Jesus’ way through the truth and life that come from Jesus. Which means that the purpose of both the truth and the life is to get you where? (To the Father) That is what life is all about – going to the Father, and that is exactly what John says is the whole purpose of his proclamation of the Word of life.

2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us-- 3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 

We proclaim the Word of life so you can end up having fellowship with the Father. All those things we talked about – health and strength and growth and joy (all the parts of life) - it all comes through fellowship with the Father. And fellowship with the Father comes only through the truth - the Father’s communication to us in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Another phrase John likes to use to describe fellowship with the Father is the phrase, “remaining in the Father.” 

1 John 2:24-25 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us-- even eternal life.

If they resist the false teachers and remain in the truth, then they will remain in the Father which is life. Remaining in the Father (having fellowship with the Father) is life.
Probably the simplest way to put it is the way Jesus said it in John 17.

John 17:3 This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent-- Jesus Christ.

That is talking about relational knowledge – the “Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived” type knowledge. Intimacy and relational closeness with God – that is what it means to have life. 
So Life is coming to the Father. Life is having fellowship with the Father. Life is remaining in the Father. Life is knowing the Father. If you have fellowship – communion – personal interaction – with the Father through fellowship with Jesus Christ, you will have life. And if you want more abundant life – greater strength, greater perception and sensitivity, greater joy, greater spiritual health and vitality - then engage in more and more, closer and closer fellowship with God through Christ. And that, beloved, is Christmas! 
What is Christmas? Christmas is the fact that Jesus came into the world to bring that life from heaven to earth and give it to us!!! Is the incarnation good news of great joy that is worth celebrating with all our might? If it is not, I don’t know what is.
Remember the old man Simeon who was begging God to let him live to see the arrival of the Messiah? Then when he saw the baby Jesus in the Temple he said, “Okay sovereign Lord, now I have seen Your salvation. Dismiss Your servant in peace.” After he prayed that he blessed Joseph and Mary. And one of the things he said was, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel.” (Lk.1:35) The arrival of Jesus means the ultimate toppling and destruction of the wicked. But it also means the rising of many. What kind of rising is that? It is the rising from death to life. This little child whose birth we celebrate became a child in order to bring the life of God from heaven to earth.
How to get more life: Be shepherded
But that life is not given to everyone. So how do you get it? It starts with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If an unbeliever comes to Him in faith – believing all that He has said and fully entrusting his or her life into Jesus’ hands and following Him, that person will be given spiritual life. So if you are a Christian then you have life – you are alive spiritually. But how do you get it in more abundant measures? If we want to answer questions about abundant life let’s take a look at the passage where Jesus talked about abundant life.

John 10:9-10 I am the gate (talking about the gate to the sheep pen); whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it in abundance.

Jesus says having this life that He is talking about is like being a sheep and going in and out and finding pasture. Going in to the sheep pen is a picture of finding a place of safety and refuge. Going out is what they would do in the day time when it was time to go find food. The shepherd would lead them to some rich pasture where there was an abundance of food. So in this context spiritual life is like being safe, finding rest, enjoying food, and being taken care of. That is life. Fellowship with Christ is when you have that sort of experience with Him. You run to Him in times of trouble and actually experience Him as a refuge, and you look to Him to satisfy the cravings of your soul (cravings for peace and happiness and guidance and meaning and awe and joy and love), and you find yourself receiving those things from Him so that your soul is satisfied. When you have those kinds of experiences with Jesus Christ that is fellowship with the Father and the more of that you enjoy the more abundant will be your spiritual life. You will increase in strength and joy and growth and liveliness and sensitivity and all the various aspects of life. Fellowship with Him causes all that to increase in your life, because He is by nature a life-giver. That is one of His attributes – like holiness or love or eternality or wisdom. Those are essential aspects of His being, and so is this. If you spend time in water, you get wet. If you spend time in the sun, you get tan, and if you spend time in fellowship with God, you get abundance of life. What an amazing God we serve – who has a nature that gives fullness of life to anyone who has fellowship with Him, and whose only demand on our lives is that we love Him and have fellowship with Him! Why did the eternal Word of life become flesh? Why was the baby born in Bethlehem? To give us the life of God and propel us into fellowship with God – the very activity that was wonderful enough to keep the Father, Son and Spirit full of joy for eternity.

Fellowship with God Part 3 Fellowship through Revelation 1:3

Summary: Verse two emphasizes the fact that the Word was revealed by God (proves perspicuity). Perspicuity is attacked by the scholars (hermeneutic of humility), by popular speakers (ambiguity for unity and growth), and by ourselves (doubting God will reveal His will and guidance). The revealed Word is declared so we can maintain fellowship with the Apostles (not just Paul), which is essential for fellowship with God. The first of the three pagan errors is that fellowship with God bypasses or transcends the intellect. It does not. If God has clearly communicated, we should eagerly listen! 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life-- 2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us-- 3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Introduction: Revealed, not Discovered
Review
The Revelation of the Life v.2
The Father Revealed Him
Definition of Perspicuity
Perspicuity under attack at three levels
1. The scholarly level
2. The popular level
3. The personal level
John is sure
Biblical argument for clarity
Fellowship with the Apostles
Spiritual partnership
No fellowship with Apostles, no fellowship with God
Beware of Paul-Onlyism
Strong warning to persevere
Fellowship with God
Refuting the pagan view
Forcing false ideas into compliance with the truth
The anti-mind error
The role of the mind
If God has clearly communicated, we should eagerly listen!

Introduction: Revealed, not Discovered
Glenn Seaborg has his name in history books because he is the one who discovered plutonium. Christopher Columbus is credited with discovering the Americas for the Europeans. Isaac Newton is famous for discovering and cataloguing the laws of motion. Lewis and Clark discovered 176 new plants, and Sam Phillips discovered Elvis Presley. Who is famous for discovering the Son of God? No one. The Son of God was not discovered; He was revealed. The reason He is now known all over the world is not because two explorers set out on an expedition and found Him. He did not get famous by making it to the final round of American Idol. The only reason anybody knows about Him is because God has revealed Him. And that fact is so important for us to know that John interrupts the opening sentence of his epistle to emphasize the fact that God revealed His Son. 

Review
The sentence begins in verse one where John highlights three things about Jesus Christ. He was from the beginning – before there was time. He was never created. He was a real, literal, physical human being who was seen and heard and touched by the Apostles. He was the Word of life – the one through whom the life of God can be experienced by us. He was never given life. He Himself is the source of all life. The Word of life became the Bread of life (Jn.6:35) and the Light of life (Jn.8:12). In other words, what God revealed to us became all that we need to have life. He feeds us, satisfies us, shows us the way to the Father, and gives us life. All that is verse one. Then, before getting to the rest of the sentence in verse three, he interrupts himself and sticks in a parenthesis. 

The Revelation of the Life v.2
The Father Revealed Him
The end of verse three mentions the Word of life, and then John says, “Speaking of the Word of life..
2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us

The NIV says that the life “appeared.” The strength of that translation is that it brings out the visible, seeing aspect of the Greek word. The Word of life became visible. The weakness of that translation, however, is that it does not say anything about the action that was carried out by the Father that made Him visible. And that is the strength of the translations that use the word “revealed.” He did not just become visible; He became visible because God the Father revealed Him. The reason the Message from God was so clear – the reason there is so much empirical proof…, is because God revealed Him. John states that twice in the verse – God revealed the life, God revealed the life.
Definition of Perspicuity
So my question is this: If God tries to reveal something, does He succeed? There is currently a major assault being leveled at the doctrine of the clarity of God’s Word. The theologians have come up with a name for that doctrine. It is called the perspicuity of Scripture.
A century ago the liberals began to attack the inerrancy of Scripture. They said it is full of errors. Others attacked the authority of Scripture. They said it is not necessarily binding on everyone. More recently the Church has really stumbled in confusion regarding the sufficiency of Scripture. They think they need to add all kinds of human wisdom – secular psychology and scientific theories about origins. And now a new battle has arisen. Now instead of attacking the inerrancy of Scripture or the authority of Scripture or the sufficiency of Scripture…, they are going after the perspicuity of Scripture. They are saying the Bible is not clear. Which means God’s attempt at revelation failed. 
Perspicuity under attack at three levels
This attack on the doctrine of the clarity of God’s revelation comes at three levels: the scholarly level, the popular level, and the personal level.

1. The scholarly level
At the scholarly level there are many today who are teaching that we cannot really know for sure what the Bible means by what it says most of the time. They say, “We need to be humble and admit that we just cannot be sure of our interpretations.” In fact, they even call it the “hermeneutics of humility.” That phrase is a big buzzword these days. Christian scholars want to be taken seriously so they can reach the world. Nobody wants to spend his whole life studying something and making a major contribution to his field, and then have that contribution be completely ignored by most scholars because he is branded as a kook. The conservatives do not want to buy in to the liberal ideas, but they do not want to be shunned either, and so what they do is just say, “Well, on this point we just really ca not say for sure.”

That fits right in to the spirit of our postmodern age. The world does not care if you do not agree with them – as long as you are not sure you are right about what you do believe. And if you ever do express something as a certainty, be so vague and ambiguous about the way you express it that it does not actually rule out any other view. In my view the Hermeneutics of Humility are really the Hermeneutics of Cowardice. It is good to try to win a listening ear from the world, but never through compromise.

2. The popular level
Another place this doctrine is under attack is at the popular level – preachers and writers who are in a love affair with ambiguity. They do not want to be too clear, because the more clear you are with the gospel the more people you alienate. If you stand up and preach that people need to “come to Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins,” and you never get more specific than that, you can gather a huge crowd. That sentence: “Come to Jesus for forgiveness through faith” sounds great to Protestants, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Liberals, Conservatives as long as you avoid being clear about things like, exactly who Jesus Christ is, exactly what the nature of saving faith is, the role of repentance, whether or not water baptism is required for salvation, the nature of grace, what role the sacraments play, the definition of justification, the role of the law of God; etc., then no one gets upset. But the minute you make any kind of clear statement about those things people start leaving your church. Or your ecumenical organization starts falling apart. I used to be in an alliance of evangelical pastors in Boulder County. We would get together for lunch once a month and combine forces for big events. And one day I suggested that perhaps we should write up a statement of the gospel. Not a detailed doctrinal statement or anything like that – just the bare bones minimum of the gospel. I said, “If the purpose of these events is for us to reach people with the gospel, we should agree on what the gospel is.” That suggestion was met not only with rejection, but with anger. Faces turned red, and the guy sitting next to me stood up and said, “I think the worst thing we could ever do would be to get into doctrine.” They know that as soon as you are clear about the gospel somebody is going to be offended.
There are a lot of churches these days that are just ambiguous. You listen to the preaching and there is no false doctrine or serious error. But the teaching is so general and vague and imprecise that hardly anything is actually being communicated. It is just a big fog. It is funny and uplifting and affirming, but vague enough so that each person can interpret what is being said in such a way as to validate what he already thinks. So everybody goes home and says, “What a great sermon – that guy is right on!” And in a place like that if somebody teaches some doctrine, and some of the people agree and others disagree – the teacher gets rebuked for being divisive. They oppose anyone who teaches anything with clarity, because if you are clear about something, the people who do not agree with that view will understand what you are saying and disagree with it. We need to keep in mind the fact that not all division is bad.

1 Corinthians 11:19 No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God's approval.

When John wanted to bring about unity and fellowship he wrote a book full of doctrine. Fellowship is not achieved by ignoring differences. It is achieved through mutual embracing of truth. How can we say to the world that the truths in this Book are the very words of Almighty God Himself, and that they bring us life, and renew the soul and show the way and are more precious than gold and sweeter than honey, and at the same time, instead of proclaiming and exalting them we avoid talking to much about them? The last thing we want to do is attract people to this church by concealing the very truth that brings life. Either we believe the gospel brings life or we do not. If we do, let’s be clear and explicit about it. To water down theology to the lowest common denominator of acceptability is to destroy the gospel, because the lowest common denominator is so low that it is less than the bare minimum core of the gospel. You have to throw out essentials if you are going to make everyone happy. We need to be like John. “What we have heard … we proclaim,” so that people might come into fellowship with us and with God, and so that our joy might be full. 

3. The personal level
A third area where this doctrine of the clarity of Scripture is under attack is at the personal level, and probably most of us are guilty at this level. Has God promised to guide us like a Shepherd guiding sheep, and to show us the way we should go in life? And yet how many times have we been guilty of assuming that His will is going to be impossible to discover in a certain context? We face one of those extremely hard decisions, and we are awake at night, unable to sleep, because we are fretting and worrying that we might make the wrong decision. We are afraid that even though we are seeking God’s guidance to the best of our ability, we might not be able to find it. Isn’t that a failure to believe that God is capable of clear communication? (I do not mean to say that it is wrong to stay up all night wrestling with a hard decision. Jesus was up all night the night before He selected the 12. Some decisions are really hard and God wants us up at night. But what is wrong is to be up at night unable to sleep because of fretting and worrying.) 
Has God promised to give us insight so that we can understand His Word? And so when we decide we will never be able to understand it and so we give up on Bible study, is that not a failure to believe the in the doctrine of the clarity of God’s revelation? So whether it is you and I worrying that we cannot be sure of God’s guidance or cannot understand Scripture, or the church growth folks preaching in a fog of ambiguity, or the scholars and their hermeneutic of humility and cowardice, it seems like fewer and fewer people are sure about anything these days.
John is sure
This is a good time to study 1 John. Because John is really sure, and he writes so that we will be sure. 36 times in this book you are going to read the word “know” (“I know” “you know” “we know”). John is not into maybe’s. You are not going to find any equivocation in this book. He would not be popular in our day. He knows for sure what the truth is and he’s writing so you will know for sure what the truth is.
Biblical argument for clarity
God has promised to be clear.

Isaiah 45:19 I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob's descendants, 'Seek me in vain.' I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.

Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.

The life and ministry of Jesus did not take place in a corner (Acts 26:26) or in a cave.

John 18:20 "I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied. …” I said nothing in secret.”

There are many passages we could point to in support of the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. But really if we want to prove that God’s revelation to us is clear and understandable we do not have to look any further than the word “revelation” itself. If God sent some encrypted message that is unintelligible, then it is not revealed! If it is revealed then by definition it must be understandable to us. Otherwise it would qualify as revelation, and John would have said “The Word was concealed” rather than revealed.
God is a capable communicator. He is not limited by our intellect, or by anything else. That does not mean everything in Scripture is easy to understand. But it does mean that the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things, and if you want to understand the essence of the gospel you will be able to if you seek after it diligently.

Fellowship with the Apostles
Okay, so now that John has made the point that Jesus was from the beginning, observed empirically by the Apostles, and that He is the Word of life in verse one, and that this eternal, physical Word of life was revealed by God in verse two, he is finally ready to get on with his sentence in verse three and tell us the purpose is – why he is declaring this message.

3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship with us

The CSB inserts the word “along,” so it says “you may have fellowship along with us.” But I think all the other translations are correct to translate it “fellowship with us.” That is the most natural way to take it.
Spiritual partnership
The “we’ in v.3 refers to the ones who saw and heard and touched Jesus - the Apostles. And so their purpose in proclaiming Jesus Christ as the eternal giver of life from God is so that the readers might have fellowship with the Apostles. Now, if you have been going to church all your life you might be wondering – why would John have to write this epistle in order for the readers to be able to have coffee and doughnuts with the Apostles?Evidently, John’s idea of fellowship is something a little bigger than coffee and doughnuts. So if fellowship isn’t coffee and doughnuts, what is it?
The word fellowship (Gr. koinonia), literally means “sharing” – sharing things or sharing in experiences in such a way that brings you into a relationship of closeness or union with the one with whom you are in fellowship. It is sharing that brings about union or relational closeness. Sometimes the sharing part is emphasized more and other times the union is the main idea. So as Christians our fellowship with one another is oneness and unity of purpose and experience, that comes through partnership and mutual sharing in the work of the Kingdom of God. That is why it can come about through John writing a letter full of doctrine.
No fellowship with Apostles, no fellowship with God
And here the idea is not about fellowship with other Christians in general (that comes in verse seven). Here he is talking specifically about fellowship with the Apostles. And if you wonder what the significance of fellowship with the Apostles is, just read the rest of the sentence.
 
3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
 
The implication is that if you do not have fellowship with John, then you do not have fellowship with God! There is no fellowship with God, no knowledge of God, no communion with God, no love for God that does not rise out of the revelation of Jesus Christ that came through the Apostles. God can only be known through the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was revealed through the writings of His Apostles (which make up the NT). So if you are at odds with the Apostles you cannot know God.
Beware of Paul-Onlyism
Beware of any who tell you that you do not have to listen to John or Peter or James or any other Apostle. There are people who teach that Paul’s letters are the only part of the Bible written to Gentiles, and so as Gentiles we do not need to accept what John says as being directly applicable to us in the same way Paul’s writings are. Beware of that sort of thing, because John taught that if you are not in fellowship with him and the other Apostles you are not in fellowship with God. And what does it mean to be in fellowship with John? Well, if the reason he wrote what he wrote was so that we might have fellowship with him, then fellowship with him happens through learning and accepting what he wrote.
The people who teach that only Paul applies directly to us very often also teach there are two separate gospels – one for Jews and a different one for Gentiles, and they look at what Peter, James, and John wrote and they see a different gospel that is not sufficient to save Gentiles. But fellowship with the Father comes when we are in harmony with the writings of the John. And so if there are doctrines in John’s writings (or Peter’s or James’ or any other New Testament writer) that you don’t embrace (like repentance or baptism or obedience to the Law of God, or confession of sin), that is a very alarming danger sign.

There is only one gospel, and it is exactly the same for Jews and Gentiles. And it is Paul himself who teaches that as clearly as anyone! He wrote that the separation that used to exist between Jews and Gentiles has now been destroyed. In Ephesians two he said that Jesus is called “our peace” because He 

Ephesians 2:14-22 has made the two (Jews and Gentiles) one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace … 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 

So there is only one gospel for all mankind. Peter, James, John, Jude, the Gospel writers, the writer of Hebrews, and Paul all taught the exact same gospel. And Paul said if anyone comes up with another gospel – even if it is an angel from heaven or Paul himself, let him be accursed (Gal.1).
Strong warning to persevere
So John is delivering a very strong warning to the readers here. If all we had were this opening paragraph we would assume that the readers were unbelievers. It sounds like they have not yet entered into fellowship with God, because John is writing so that they might have fellowship with God. But as we keep reading we find that all through the book John refers to them as believers. He uses the inclusive “we” to refer to them and himself together. And in 5:13 he explicitly states that they have eternal life. And so what this opening statement amounts to is instruction not about how to enter into fellowship with God, but about how to remain in fellowship with God. Their perseverance is in jeopardy. False teachers are trying to lead them astray, and John is writing to keep the readers from being led astray.

1 John 2:26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.

And if they go astray what is at stake is nothing less than fellowship with God. 

Fellowship with God

So what is fellowship with God? If the whole purpose of the proclamation of the gospel is for us to have fellowship with God, it is pretty important that we understand what fellowship with God is.
Refuting the pagan view
It is almost certainly true that the reason John brings up the word “fellowship” here is because it was a word the false teachers were misusing. Fellowship does not appear to be a word that was part of John’s preferred vocabulary. He uses the noun in this passage and nowhere else in his epistle (which is uncharacteristic – John likes to repeat key words all through his writing). Also, he uses the word zero times in his entire gospel and zero times in Revelation. So evidently it was a word used by the false teachers in a wrong way.
And we know of at least three wrong concepts of fellowship with God that were being taught in John’s day: the stoic idea, the Dionysian idea, and the Gnostic idea. The stoics talked a lot about fellowship with God (using the word koinonia), but their concept of God was that He was an impersonal force or concept. So by “fellowship with God” what they meant was a particular standing before God only. They thought that if they had an affinity with and agreement with the truth then they were in an ongoing state of “fellowship” with God. It was merely a condition they were in. They did not think of it in terms of a personal, subjective experience or relational interaction with God. 
The religion of Dionysus was the opposite extreme. They were the pagan mystics. Fellowship with God for them was a state of ecstatic frenzy. They called it enthusiasmos. That word comes from en (in) and theos (God). “In-Godism” You get into God and He gets into you and the result is ecstatic, uncontrolled, craziness that they called “sacred frenzy.” They spoke of being “drunk” with divine inspiration. And they really did act drunk.

A third approach was the approach of the early Gnostics. They had the idea that through attaining special knowledge certain elite, especially enlightened people could ascend into a higher sphere (that is detached from the physical realm) and attain a special oneness with God that was inaccessible to the common man. This could only be attained through the teachings of special “anointed” teachers, who were highly enlightened. They used terms like “abiding with God” and being “children of God,” and “knowing God.” One of the ancient Gnostic writings that may have been around for a good 200 years by John’s time (called the Hermetic writings) speaks of being born again. The mystic achieves regeneration (rebirth) through a vision in which he becomes detached from the impression of the senses. The vision reaches its climax and the mystic says, “I am in heaven, on earth, in water, in the air…everywhere…Father I see the All and myself in Mind.” It is a pantheistic idea in which the mystic becomes identified with the deity by breaking free not only from the senses, but also breaking free from meaningful, sound, logical thought. That is why you get sentences like, “I see the All and myself in Mind.” 
Forcing false ideas into compliance with the truth
Now, remember what we are supposed to do with ideas and arguments that lift themselves up against the truth of God? Any idea or doctrine that is lifted up against the truth is called a “stronghold” (2 Cor.10:5). And what are we to do when we encounter those strongholds?

2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

You kidnap those arguments and ideas, and force them into obedience to the truth. And that is exactly what John is doing here with the false teachers of his time. He rips the very phrases they use to describe their doctrines right out of their hands and uses them in proper ways to correct their false teaching. He kidnaps the idea of fellowship with God and uses that very phrase in a way the refutes the errors of the false teachers. This is a good time for us to study 1 John, because the same three errors of John’s day regarding fellowship with God are still prevalent today.

The anti-mind error
The Gnostic error is still very much alive and kicking. People think fellowship with God can be attained by bypassing the intellect. Or they think communion with God somehow “transcends” the intellect. You see this in those meetings where the leaders work the crowd into a frenzy. They do all they can to get everyone to focus completely on feeling and not to think rationally. That was a big part of the Toronto “blessing” and Brownsville “revival” where the people were laughing uncontrollably and barking like dogs, etc. Rodney Howard-Browne would urge people over and over, “Stop praying. Some of you are praying – please, stop praying. You can pray later.” Prayer ruins the whole thing because it engages the mind. 
In an interview Browne said that in his mind the content of what is preached is “almost irrelevant.” "One night I was preaching on hell," Howard-Browne said, continuing, "and it just hit the whole place. The more I told people what hell was like, the more they laughed, and when I gave an altar call, they came forward by the hundreds to get saved." They have fallen in love with anything that has the appearance of being supernatural. You can spot these people because they talk about miracles as if they were something far greater than providence. They get real excited about a miraculous healing, and they hardly care at all about a natural healing. They love what they call “manifestations.” (By that they mean anything that is unusual or bizarre.) Browne even said, "I'd rather be in a church where the devil and the flesh are manifesting than in a church where nothing is happening because people are too afraid to manifest anything... and if the devil manifests, don't worry about that, either. Rejoice, because at least something is happening.” 
Just the other day someone was telling me about a church he visited where they were telling him, “Don’t use your mind – your mind is your enemy.” The techniques that work a crowd into a frenzy are well known techniques that have been used by stage hypnotists for years. These preachers do exactly the same things that the stage hypnotists do. And it has the same effect. It puts people into an altered state of consciousness that feels like a profound religious experience. But it does not work very well if people are thinking rationally, and so they discourage that. 
The Gnostic ideas of the time held that there are other pathways to fellowship with God. There were people claiming to have a special anointing, so that you could only find fellowship with God though their special teaching. (ch.2) They had a system in which enlightenment had nothing to do with morality. Truth about the historical person and work of Jesus Christ was not considered essential. They thought you could be ignorant about that and still have access to fellowship with God.
All those errors exist today. There are a lot of Christians who think they can bypass the hard work of studying and properly interpreting God’s Word, and skip directly to an experience with God apart from doctrine. Or they get caught up with some teacher whose teaching is nonsense. And if you point out that it is nonsense they say that is just proof that you are not enlightened. You are still operating on normal logic and reason, and this teaching transcends all that.
Don’t ever fall for that. There is no truth that transcends logic. By definition that which is not logical is meaningless. Sentences that do not make sense are not higher than reason – they are lower. People who use nonsensical language to describe what they think are transcendent truths are really just reverting back to their days as a one-year-old when they were unable to express their thoughts in coherent sentences. It is not a sign of spirituality or enlightenment. It is just a sign of a foggy mind that does not have clear understanding.

The role of the mind
So John writes about fellowship with God in a way that exposes the error of the Gnostic teaching. Rudolf Schnackenburg: “To this mystery piety, with its strong focus on experience, its wallowing in the inebriation of divine inspiration, there can be no greater contrast than the piety of the Johannine writings, with its emphasis on faith, its lucidity of mind, and its ethical sobriety – and, on the other hand, its fervent love…. Fellowship with God is attained through faith rather than through ecstasy.” 
John points out that the truth appeared in plain, clear form that could be touched and heard and understood and clearly communicated in ordinary language. And fellowship with God is attained through the doctrines of the book 1 John.
You never see biblical descriptions of experiences with God that say anything about bypassing the intellect. Just the opposite. It is always through understanding truth (doctrine) that you gain access into the presence of God. When the psalmist wanted to enter in to the presence of God he asked God to send him truth.

Psalm 43:3-4 Send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my joy of all my rejoicing. 

Hosea said the same thing:

Hosea 6:3 Let us know. Let us press on to know the LORD. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.

Experiences of the presence of God come through knowledge. When the Disciples failed to understand something Jesus taught, Jesus said it was a sign of little faith. In the parable of the soils Jesus said that lack of understanding is the cause of the seed of the gospel being snatched away from a person’s heart.
Paul prayed for the Philippians to experience blamelessness, purity, and righteousness by means of increasing knowledge, depth of insight, and discernment. (Php.1:9-11) The book of the Bible that focuses most heavily on personal, subjective experiences with God is Psalms. And the Psalms are as cogent and intellectually rigorous as any part of Scripture. 
Information, by itself, is not enough to have communion with God. Knowing a person is a lot more than just gathering facts. You can have awareness of thousands of facts about a person and still not know them personally or love them. Love is a lot more than knowing information. But it is not less than knowing information. If I claim to love my wife, but I don’t know anything about her, I am kidding myself. If you do not recognize a person when you see them, and you have no idea what that person loves or hates, or what that person is like, then you can not love that person with any meaningful depth of love.
A couple years ago I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me how little I really know about God. I tried to see how many of His attributes I could list off the top of my head. I don’t remember how many I came up with, but I remember it was a pretty short list. And so I began studying and praying through the Psalms, and each time I came across an attribute of God I added it to my list. So far I have gone through just 24 psalms, and from those 24 psalms (plus a few individual verses) my list is up over 150 attributes now. And I guarantee that little study does not even scratch the surface of what God has revealed about Himself. We worship a God whose wonders are unfathomable and innumerable. 

Psalm 106:2 Who can declare the LORD's mighty acts or proclaim all the praise due Him?

Psalm 40:5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.

Job 5:9 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, wonders that cannot be counted.

Job 26:14 And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?"

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments and untraceable His ways!

Just the things about Himself that God has clearly revealed to us are no doubt too many for any one person to catalogue in a single lifetime. And every single one of those attributes is a galaxy of delightful and awesome truth that could never be fully comprehended or appreciated by a finite creature. Even if God had only revealed one of His attributes to us it would be enough to keep us busy studying and learning for all eternity. I have made my little list that is so far up to 150, and one of those 150 that John emphasizes in this passage is that He is a self-revealing God. That’s one of His attributes.

If God has clearly communicated, we should eagerly listen!
We will look more next time into the meaning of fellowship with God, but for now let’s just savor the sweet taste of this one attribute. God has revealed Himself to us in a way we can understand. As we will see next time, fellowship with God takes place when you consciously enjoy the experience of one of His attributes. So how do we experience this one? What should be our response to the fact that He is a self-revealing God? Obviously, that attribute is experienced by us when we study about Him and learn all we can of Him for the purpose of knowing Him and loving Him more. When you study what He has revealed of Himself you place yourself into a position of being able to experience this attribute. And you can enjoy the experience of being tutored by Him.
If your best friend opened up her diary to you and let you read her most private thoughts, or someone close to you came and poured out his heart to you with complete honesty and transparency, lack of interest on your part would dishonor that person. Great, intense interest, combined with admiration and delight in what you read or hear – that would greatly honor that person.
We have to have enough balance in the way we spend our time so that we do not neglect any essential things. If a person spent all his time studying, and no time in ministry or loving his family or prayer or earning a living – that would be wrong. So it is possible to study God’s Word too much. However, my guess is if I asked for a show of hands of those who are spending too much time in the study of God’s Word, not many hands would go up. But if I said raise your hand if you know for a fact that you study too little, my guess is quite a few would go up. If you are one who studies too little God has opened up His diary and revealed the deep and marvelous secrets of His heart in Scripture, He has spoken to you life-giving, soul-satisfying truths, He has exposed to you His very thoughts and affections and desires, and your response has been to glance at it, yawn, and be on your way; or if you look into what He has revealed with a sense of resentment that you have to endure this painful chore of listening to God’s voice, I urge you to make 2008 a year of listening to God.
Some of you could increase your study simply by getting a good study Bible, like the NIV Study Bible (which has notes that explain what the verses mean). Or maybe you need to save some pennies and get your hands on a good commentary. Or maybe you need to invest a month or two into learning the principles of hermeneutics (how to interpret the Bible). I taught a class on that. It has 16 parts and you can download the mp3s and the notes for free on TreasuringGod.com. Others of you need to start listening to some good preaching during the week on the radio or online. Once a day turn on R.C. Sproul or James Kennedy, or John MacArthur, or Alister Begg, or James McDonald, or John Piper, or Ravi Zacharias, or Ed Taylor, or James Boice. Any one of those you can listen to for free any time of the day on OnePlace.com. Or some of them you can catch on the radio on 94.7 KRKS.
More Bible study is not the solution for all of you. Some of you, I would imagine, are already studying as much as you can, and the main thing you need to focus on is how to get from that study to greater intimacy with God. And that is what we will talk about next week. But for now let’s all resolve to honor God in the way we receive what He has revealed. I am going to close by misquoting Acts 17:11.

Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they … examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

That is almost always the way you hear the verse quoted, and yet that is not what it says. It does not say that the Bereans were more noble because they searched the Scriptures to check if what Paul was saying was correct. Sometimes people think of the Bereans in Acts 17 as being skeptical and slow to accept what Paul was saying until they could verify it. That is the opposite of what the verse actually says. Here is the correct quotation: 

Acts 17:11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Examining the Scriptures, by itself, does nothing to honor God. What honors God is the eagerness in your heart to receive what He has revealed. If God has revealed something it is a greater treasure than anything in this world, amen? So let’s all have eagerness of heart that matches that “amen.” 

Benediction: Php.1:9-11 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God

Fellowship with God Part 4 Fellowship with God 1:3b

Summary: Fellowship with God is a supremely important topic (purpose of the Gospel). John uses the term in order to demolish the stronghold of the false teachers’ misuse of it. They taught that fellowship could be attained apart from truth, or that one should simply interpret all experiences that seem to be from God as being from God, or that fellowship with God was merely a state of being, like citizenship. John refutes all three. It is based on the gospel, it is a steady state relationship that depends upon episodes of intimacy, it is a personal, reciprocal, subjective experience in which He gives and we receive. It is closeness, but not identification. 

Introduction
The Importance of Fellowship with God
Purpose of the Gospel
Summary of the Christian life
Refuting the pagan view (taking “koinonia” captive)
The anti-intellect error
The superstitious mysticism error
The Stoic error (impersonal standing or status)
The biblical picture of fellowship with God
Begin with Truth
Partnership
A steady condition
Periodic Episodes
Subjective Experience
Present Tense (mystical better than physical)
Personal
Closeness, but not identification
It is reciprocal
He gives, we receive
Summary: 1) Join, 2) Attend 3) Receive
Conclusion: A day in the life of a Christian
Devotionals

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life-- 2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us-- 3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Introduction
When is the last time you experienced the presence of God? You actually felt His presence in the room in such a way that you were deeply moved – not moved by music or some created thing, but by the actual presence of God Himself? That sort of thing used to happen to me maybe once a year, or even less. Now it is more than once a week, often more than once a day. And those experiences are more satisfying to my soul than any pleasure in this life. The change came about through the principle talked about in this passage – fellowship with God.

The Importance of Fellowship with God 
Purpose of the Gospel
Fellowship with God is an incredibly important pursuit. John says the purpose of his ministry and the ministry of the other Apostles in proclaiming the gospel was so that we might have fellowship with God. The Apostles laid down their lives in order to proclaim the gospel, and John says their purpose in doing so was so that we could have fellowship with God.
Summary of the Christian life
Paul summarized the entire Christian calling as fellowship with God. God called you to become a Christian. Another way of saying that is He called you into fellowship with Himself.

1 Corinthians 1:9 God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

Clearly fellowship with God is a hugely important topic so we are going to devote this entire study to understanding what fellowship with God is all about.

Refuting the pagan view (taking “koinonia” captive)
To begin with we need to understand why John uses the word “fellowship.” John has certain favorite words he loves to use, and fellowship is not one of them. It was not part of John’s preferred vocabulary. He uses the noun in this passage and nowhere else in his epistle (which is very uncharacteristic for John). He uses the word zero times in the book of Revelation and zero times in the Gospel of John. But we know it was a word his opponents used. They talked a lot about having fellowship with God.
Normally John would rather use other terms to describe our interactions with God, but there is a reason he wants to use this word here. Remember what we are supposed to do with ideas and arguments that lift themselves up against the truth of God? Any idea or doctrine that is lifted up against the truth is called a “stronghold” (2 Cor.10:5). And what are we to do when we encounter those strongholds?

2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

You kidnap those arguments and ideas, and force them into obedience to the truth. And that is exactly what John is doing here with the false teachers of his time. He rips the very phrases they use to describe their doctrines right out of their hands and uses them in proper ways to correct their false teaching. He kidnaps the idea of fellowship with God and uses that very phrase in a way that refutes the errors of the false teachers.
We know of at least three wrong concepts of fellowship with God that were being taught in John’s day.
The anti-intellect error
The first one we looked at last week – the idea that fellowship with God can be achieved through an emotional experience that bypasses the intellect - or that it is something that transcends the intellect. One of the ancient Gnostic writings (called the Hermetic writings) taught that a person can achieve regeneration (rebirth) through a vision in which he becomes detached from the impression of the senses. When that happens the person says, “I am in heaven, on earth, in water, in the air…everywhere…Father I see the All and myself in Mind.” What they are doing is not only breaking free from the senses but also breaking free from sense. They broke free from meaningful, sound, logical thought altogether. That is why you get sentences like, “I see the All and myself in Mind.” People like that describe their experiences and it comes out as nonsense. 
And so along comes John and says, 

3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 

The “we’ in verse three refers to the ones who saw and heard and touched Jesus - the Apostles. Their purpose in proclaiming Jesus Christ as the eternal giver of life from God is so that the readers might have fellowship with the Apostles. The word fellowship (Gr. koinonia) has a wide semantic range, so you pick up on the particular emphasis from the context. In this context the emphasis is on partnership. The fellowship the readers (and we) are to have with John and the Apostles is partnership in the work of the gospel…sharing with them in the task of building the Kingdom of God. And that kind of partnership can only happen through the truth of the writings of the Apostles (the New Testament). Scripture always emphasizes the role of truth and doctrine and knowledge and understanding on the path toward fellowship with God. Fellowship with God comes through sound doctrine, not through esoteric weirdness. 
Two other wrong ideas about fellowship with God in John’s time were the Dionysian approach and the stoic approach – which were opposites.
The superstitious mysticism error
The religion of Dionysus was a religion of pagan mysticism. These were the wackos. Fellowship with God for them was a state of ecstatic frenzy. They called it enthusiasmos. That word comes from en (in) and theos (God). You get into God and He gets into you and the result is ecstatic, uncontrolled, craziness that they called “sacred frenzy.” They spoke of being “drunk” with divine inspiration. And they really did act drunk.
This is another error that is alive and well today in varying degrees. There are some who get into the bizarre extremes of the ancient pagan mysticism. There are others who buy into this error in a more subtle way. They do not do weird, strange antics, but their encounters with God still fall under the category of superstitious mysticism, simply because they are superstitious. It is very, very common for Christians to drift into superstition. The definition of superstition is believing something without adequate evidence. If you decide to believe something and there is no sound reason for believing it – that is superstition.
Christians often fall into this. If I wake up in the middle of the night with an idea or impression or strong sensation that I ought to do something, and I interpret that idea or impression or impulse as automatically being from God – that is superstition. If you have a strange, unexplainable feeling or you get goose bumps out of nowhere, and you interpret that to be the presence of God, unless there is some biblical reason to believe it is the presence of God, then that is superstition. If a coincidence happens and you interpret that as a message from God – that is superstition. If you randomly open your Bible and see a verse that seems to speak to your situation if taken out of context, and you take that as a message from God that is superstition. And all those things are very common in modern Christendom. We have a huge problem with superstitious mysticism. 
The Stoic error (impersonal standing or status)
The stoics were on the other extreme. The stoics talked a lot about having fellowship with God (using the word koinonia), but their concept of God was that He was an impersonal force or concept. So by “fellowship with God” what they meant was a particular standing before God only – not a personal interaction or subjective experience. They thought that if they had an affinity with and agreement with the truth then they were in an ongoing state of “fellowship” with God. It was merely a condition they were in – like being a citizen of a country.
So John is writing against three errors: 
The Gnostic error tried to attain fellowship with God while bypassing truth.
The Dionysun error was superstitious mysticism – assuming feelings and experiences must be from God just because they felt like they were from God.
The Stoic error made fellowship a matter of status or standing, apart from subjective, personal experience. 

The biblical picture of fellowship with God
So what is the biblical picture of fellowship with God?
Begin with Truth
We found last week that the starting point must always be the truth of Scripture. The first two errors – bypassing truth and superstitious mysticism, are present today in certain extreme parts of the Charismatic movement. Not all Charismatics commit these errors, but they do tend to be prone in that direction. You often hear the Charismatic movement criticized for over-emphasizing experience but that is not the problem. Experience is a good thing. The problem is when they use experience to derive or determine truth, instead of using truth to arrive at experience. They get the order reversed. They have some experience that is deeply moving, and so they decide it must be from God. That is backwards. But the solution is not to be like the stoics and diminish the importance of subjective experience, and say that the only thing that matters is your position and your doctrine. The solution is to begin with truth, and use the truth to bring you into greater experiences with God. So let’s think through how you get from truth to experience.
Partnership
This first point I will just touch on lightly because John develops it much more later in the book. But we need to mention it here because it is a crucial starting point. Both the anti-intellect error and the superstitious mysticism error tended to divorce fellowship with God from morality and/or day-to-day life. They would have these deep, mystical experiences with God in seclusion somewhere, but that had nothing to do with their lifestyle. So all through this book you are going to see John fight against that kind of thinking. You cannot separate nearness to God and love for your fellow man. John mixes the two together over and over again. There is no closeness to God that does not impact the way you live, because part of fellowship is partnership. Being in fellowship with God, by definition, means joining Him at His side and doing the same work He is doing. We have fellowship (partnership) with God when we join with Him in what He is doing (or saying or thinking or feeling).
It is an amazing thing to be in partnership with God. The next time you think it is a menial, trivial, meaningless task to sweep the floor or fill out paperwork at your job or do your ministry in the Church, remember this principle. Think of how great God’s work is. After He made the earth and the oceans and the sun and the moon, He sprinkled the stars in the sky for effect. What we now know are billions of galaxies He just threw out there like so much glitter. When He wants to add a tiny speck to the night sky He does it by creating and upholding a cluster of galaxies with billions of stars each. Are you great enough and powerful enough to join Him at His side and participate in His creation and upholding of one of those specks? Not even close. We can do nothing at His side to join Him in sending lightning or snow or even a gentle breeze across a mountain meadow. We cannot help with gravity or the laws of physics. We cannot help the sun rise or make the tides go out. We cannot feed the cattle on a thousand hills, nor give food and life to all creatures that have breath. We cannot even make our own hearts beat. God is so great that even His smallest, least important works are infinitely beyond our ability to be involved. 
However, His highest and greatest and most spectacular works – those He has enabled us to join by His side in bringing about. He does good, and we can join Him in doing good. He bears witness to His own glory and puts it on display, and we can join Him in bearing witness to His glory. He glorifies His Son, and we can glorify His Son too. Jesus loves the Father and we can join Him in that and help others to do so as well. The Holy Spirit teaches and enlightens, and we can be the tools He uses. He transforms wicked hearts with His gospel, and we are the mouths He uses to proclaim that gospel. He forgives sins and makes saints out of sinners and rescues the perishing and restores the years the locust have eaten and brings justice for the oppressed and accomplishes fantastic, glorious, eternal purposes; and we can join by His side in all of that! He carries out His infinitely wise providential plan through the routines of life and we can knowingly participate in that. 
And none of that is not like the “work” we let our little children do when we give them a plastic lawnmower or a fake vacuum or toy computer so they can pretend to be accomplishing real adult work. He gives us real ability to achieve real, eternal ends (so that if we do not do them they really will go undone). There is nothing menial done for the King of kings. Nothing is mundane that has eternal, glorious outcomes. Nothing is small that has been commanded by the Ground of all meaning. Nothing that delights the Maker and Sustainer of all things can be unimportant. Learn to delight in the sensation of knowing that in all your work you can be close by His side, joining Him in His greatest works. So the first part of fellowship is joining God in what He is doing, feeling, saying, or being.
Now, let’s think through the nature of this partnership. Is it a continuous state of being, like justification? Or is it something that happens in episodes at various times – like being filled with the Spirit or being obedient? Is it a condition that is the same 24 hours a day – like being a citizen? Or is it something you might experience at 4:00 in the afternoon one day but then not so much at 5:00? I would submit that there is one sense in which it is ongoing constantly and another sense in which it happens in episodes. 

A steady condition 
Down in verse six John speaks of fellowship with God in terms of a steady condition. If you are a true Christian then you are in an ongoing condition of having fellowship with God.
When a person comes to a point of brokenness over his sin, and instead of trying to fix himself he gives up completely on trusting his own resources and trusts the Lord Jesus Christ to save him, at that moment he enters into fellowship with God. Before that you did not know God, and now you are in a close relationship with Him. So there is a steady-state aspect to it, because that relationship and access to God is always there day and night.
It is a big mistake, however, to imagine that just because you are a Christian you are having all the fellowship with God that you need. The Bible compares it to the marriage relationship. When you are married, you are married every day all day long – whether you are paying attention to each other or separated by some long distance. So even when you are not personally interacting with each other you are still married to each other. However, if there is no personal interaction with each other at all then it is not much of a marriage. The intimacy of marriage can survive the periods of separation if and only if the times of personal closeness are good enough and frequent enough. If the times of intimacy in marriage are inadequate, then you will drift apart rather than come closer together. Your official position and standing of being legally married is not enough, by itself, to build or even maintain relational oneness. 

Periodic Episodes
Fellowship with God is the same way. It is something that can survive those times when you are not paying any attention to God because you have to focus your attention on something else – but only if the times when you are paying attention to God are good enough and frequent enough. For that love to stay alive and increase it has to be attended to – just like in a marriage or any other love relationship. So do not think of fellowship with God merely as a condition or state of being or legal status with God. The focus of this concept of fellowship is not mainly on the status of the relationship, but the activity of the relationship.
Subjective Experience
So what is that activity? Is it just the activity of doing good deeds, obeying God, serving in ministry – external actions; or does it involve internal feelings and subjective experiences – feelings that take place inside your heart? If you just have a feeling and interpret that as being God’s presence for no good reason that is superstitious mysticism. But if you dismiss feelings and subjective experiences as being unimportant, that is the stoic error.
Is it possible to feel God’s presence? And if so, what does it feel like? How do you sense the presence of God? The Bible does not tell us to sense it through goose bumps or butterflies in your stomach or cold sweats or a quiver in you liver or anything like that. But Scripture does tell us how we can sense His presence, and it is indeed through feelings. There are many feelings Scripture associates with the presence of God. One of them is joy (Ps.16:11). Another one is peace (Nm.6:26). Another one is fear (Jer.5:22). Another is comfort (Ps.23:4). Another is satisfaction of soul (Ps.17:15). Another is confidence & security (Ps.30:7).
Scripture speaks a great deal about subjective experiences. What could possibly be meant by things like hearing God, beholding God, listening to God, enjoying God, eating and drinking God, being satisfied by God’s presence if they are not subjective experiences? What else could those images be meant to describe? They are the most experiential concepts there are. They have to refer to some sort of experience. In Philippians two, Paul labors to persuade us to be humble and loving toward one another. And he begins his argument by saying, “If you have received tender care from God, then let that motivate you to be humble and loving toward one another.” That’s the argument. But when he says the part about receiving tender care from God, he does not just use a single word to describe God’s tenderness. He uses several words to really drive home the point of how kind and gentle and loving and tender is God’s care for us. Here is what he says:

Philippians 2:1-2 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

Think about that list: encouragement from Christ, comfort, tenderness, compassion, and, right in the middle of that list, fellowship with the Spirit. That tells us something about fellowship with the Spirit doesn’t it? It fits in the same category as things like encouragement and tenderness from God. Fellowship with God is something very sweet and soothing to the soul. It is not a theoretical encouragement or comfort that is not really felt in the emotions. Encouragement that is not felt could hardly be called encouragement. The same goes for fellowship with God. It is real and deep and is felt as profoundly as any physical sensation. It is more than a mere feeling to be sure, but it is not less. The character of God’s very being is such that if a person is near Him that person will feel encouraged and comforted. In fact, it is only by His nearness can you be encouraged in your spirit. 

Ps.62:1 My soul finds rest in God alone.

Present Tense (mystical better than physical)
Look back for a moment at verse one. See all the past tense verbs? Now look at verse three – what tense is that? (present) Think about the significance of that. All the seeing and touching and hearing and beholding of Jesus that John describes in verse one is in the past. Back when Jesus was walking on this earth during His earthly ministry – that is when they touched Him and heard Him and saw Him. But the fellowship in verse three is in the present. 
Think about the fellowship the Apostles had with Jesus during His earthly ministry. During those years those 12 men had an experience that every Christian fantasizes about. What Christian has not daydreamed about what it would be like to have the kind of interaction they had with Jesus Christ when He walked this earth? And it is doubtful that any of them enjoyed fellowship with Jesus during His earthly ministry in a more profound way than John. Not only was he in the inner three, but John was the disciple Jesus loved, who leaned against Jesus’ chest at the last supper. He was the one to whom Jesus entrusted His own dear mother. He was Jesus’ best friend. 
What an amazing thing! This man who is writing this was the man who was closer to Jesus during His earthly ministry than anyone. If John wants to talk about fellowship and closeness with Jesus Christ he could tell some mind blowing stories about what he experienced as a young man. And yet, instead of pointing to that as most significant, when it came to fellowship with Jesus John pointed to his present experience of fellowship with Christ. 
And the reason is that the present is better than what John had experienced in the past. The fellowship that we can enjoy with the Father, Son, and Spirit now is more profound than the fellowship the Apostles enjoyed when Jesus was physically present. The night before Jesus died He comforted the Apostles by telling them that the relational closeness that they would have with Him would be greater than what they had enjoyed in the past.

John 14:17-21 The world is unable to receive [the Spirit of truth] because it doesn't see Him or know Him. But you do know Him, because He remains with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. 19 "In a little while the world will see Me no longer, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live too. 20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you. 21 The one who has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. And the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I also will love him and will reveal Myself to him."

He said, “I am leaving, but I am not leaving you alone. I will come to you. Then the Holy Spirit will not just be with you but in you. And you will see Me in a greater way than you see Me now. I will be so close to you I will be in you, and you will love Me and the Father will love you, and there will be a union and oneness and closeness that exceeds what we enjoy now.” And then He went on in chapter 16 to explain that this new, greater kind of fellowship with Him would produce a joy in them that could not be lost.

John 16:22 So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

That is how Jesus comforted the Apostles the night before He died. And now, after decades of experiencing this deeper, greater fellowship with Christ and with the Father, John writes about his experience with Christ and switches to the present tense when he mentions fellowship. He had experienced both kinds – fellowship with the physical Jesus on earth and fellowship with the risen Christ spiritually, and he knew from experience that the latter was greater than the former. So fellowship with God is a real, actual, subjective experience that you can feel – not a theoretical abstraction. 
Personal
Another error the Stoics made was the fact that they did not believe God was a person, and so they thought of fellowship as an impersonal phenomenon. Just carry out the actions of religion and that equals fellowship with God. And so John points to a fellowship that is personal.

3 …our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ

The Father is a person and Jesus Christ is a person. Fellowship is a personal interaction. It involves things that take place between persons – like communication and love.
There are some Christians that fall into the same error as the Stoics. They reduce fellowship with God down to just gathering information and agreeing to a set of propositions, and then carrying out the deeds of the Christian life. They claim they believe that God is a person, and yet they do not pursue personal interaction with Him. They have developed a mechanized approach to their faith. They read their Bible and pray and go to church and serve in ministry and have their devotions and memorize Scripture and a host of other things, and they do all that with hardly any personal interaction with God. They think reading your Bible and praying every day is kind of like working out. If you do pushups every day for 15 minutes your muscles will get stronger. It does not matter what your attitude is, whether you enjoy it or not, what you are thinking about at the time, all that matters is that you do them, and you will get the benefit. Spending time with a person is not like that. If you try that with your wife – just discipline yourself to put in the time and take her on a weekly date, but you have no personal interaction with her, your love will decrease, not increase. 
That is one reason God is called “the living God” in contrast to dead idols. Our longing is not mainly for the stuff God can give us, but for God Himself.

Psalm 42:1-2 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

Fellowship with God is a two-way exchange of love and relational interaction between a worshipper and his God.
 
Closeness, but not identification 
It is not the distant, impersonal, theoretical “closeness” of the stoics. Nor is it the Gnostic pantheistic idea of becoming so close that you melt right in to being part of God – like an ice cube melting into the ocean. We enjoy oneness and close union with God in fellowship, but the distinction between Him and us always remains. We never become God or part of God. But we do seek nearness to Him.
When you experience the nearness of God’s favorable presence to bless it is an experience in which you are acutely aware that God is right there in the room. And that is something Scripture tells us to seek.

Hebrews 10:22 let us draw near to God

James 4:8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

What does it mean to “draw near” to an omnipresent God? It means you pay attention to Him and are aware that He is attending to you. You experience His attributes (His love and faithfulness and power, etc.) and you recognize them as His attributes and you enjoy the experience of them. That is fellowship with God, and it should be our only desire. So the reason a Christian should go on vacation is to experience fellowship with God in unique ways. The reason a Christian should want to spend time with his family is to experience fellowship with God through them. The reason a Christian should eat an ice cream cone or go bowling or read the newspaper or come to church or take out the trash is to experience various aspects of fellowship with God. When we read the Bible we can have the fellowship of being personally tutored by God. When we pray we can have the fellowship of pouring out our hearts to Him and being listened to by Him. When we worship we can have the fellowship of rejoicing in Him. When we love those He loves we can have the fellowship of joining Him in His affections. When we serve in ministry we can have the fellowship of joining by His side and working with Him in partnership. When we carry out the duties of life, like going to work or cleaning the house or getting new tires for the car, we can have fellowship with Him by carrying out that which He specifically called us to do. When we lie down to sleep we can have the fellowship of experiencing God as a refuge and giver of peace and rest. When we engage in recreation we can have the fellowship of being renewed and rejuvenated by Him.
None of those are automatically fellowship with God. If you go on vacation without paying attention to God you miss the fellowship you could have had. And that is true for taking out the garbage, or serving in ministry, or reading your Bible, or praying, or singing worship songs at church. None of that is automatically fellowship with God. If you do it without attending to God it does not bring you into closer communion with Him.

It is reciprocal
One of the ways Scripture highlights the personal emphasis is by always describing fellowship with God in reciprocal terms. Fellowship with God is two-sided, not one-sided. In that way it is different from things like justification or forgiveness. Justification is one-sided – God does everything and I do nothing. Forgiveness is one-sided. God forgives and all I do is get forgiven. 
But the word koinonia means mutual sharing. John consistently emphasizes the reciprocal nature of our relationship with God. We are in Him and He is in us. We know Him and are known by Him. We remain in Him and He remains in us. We have Him and we are His. Fellowship is a decidedly two-sided exchange of love. We offer our love to Him and receive His love from Him.
He gives, we receive 
Now obviously the love we offer Him is very different from the love He offers us. We love Him mainly by needing, depending on, and delighting in what He supplies. He loves us by delighting to be the supply for our needs and desires. That is why fellowship with God is in the same category as grace and love from God.

2 Corinthians 13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Those three go together. His fellowship is like His love and His grace – it comes to us from Him as a gift.
He is always the Giver and we are always the receivers. There are hints of this even in human relationships. A man shows love to his wife by desiring to see her beauty and taking delight in that, and the wife shows love to her husband by becoming beautiful for him and enjoying in his enjoyment of her. He gets the enjoyment of seeing her beauty and she gets the enjoyment of being enjoyed and being regarded as beautiful. You show love to a wise man by asking him questions, and he shows love to you by answering questions. He gets the enjoyment of dispensing his wisdom and you get the enjoyment of receiving his wisdom. Little baby Priya loves her mom and dad, and Andrew and Danelle love their little daughter. Priya loves mainly by being held and cared for and fed and nurtured by her parents, and Andrew and Danelle love it when Priya sees them and smiles real big and wants to come to them.
Our posture in loving God is a posture of receiving. When we have an exchange of love with God we have the enjoyment of receiving all the benefits that come from being in His presence, and He receives the glory of being shown to be an all-sufficient, soul-satisfying spring of living water. So the love in both directions is based on desire and delight. For us, we desire and delight in being the beneficiaries of all that comes from being in God’s presence. And for God, He delights in being the great Benefactor who has an infinite supply of grace.
So all the various kinds of fellowship we have with God - Scripture, prayer, worship, serving in ministry, loving people - in order to be true fellowship, must come from a perspective of receiving from God rather than giving to God. Even when we serve Him in carrying out ministry, we are receiving much more than giving.

Isaiah 26:12 all that we have accomplished you have done for us.

1 Peter 4:11 If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

So whatever you are doing to have fellowship with God, whether it is prayer, worship, Bible reading, ministry, spending time with your kids, dying for His name on the mission field, coming to a church work day, or putting money in the offering plate – all of it should be done from the perspective of a thirsty soul coming to a mountain spring. When you carry out some difficult ministry, it should not be you giving something to God, but rather you coming hungry to His feast. When you put money in the offering plate, it should not be you supplying a needy god, but rather you coming thirsty and drinking from His fountain. All of our fellowship with God is receiving. And all of His fellowship with us is giving. 

Summary: 1) Join, 2) Attend 3) Receive 
Now, if all that is a little overwhelming, and you are thinking, “I can’t remember all that. Just tell me the bottom line about what fellowship with God is,” here goes: you have fellowship with God when you do three things. Just think of JAR (Join, Attend, Receive). 
Join God in what He is doing, feeling, saying, or being. That’s the partnership aspect. If He is working to establish the Kingdom of heaven, then you join Him at His side and work along with Him. If He is working to saturate the lives of His people with His Word, then you join Him at His side in doing that. The things He says in His Word you say. The things that are detestable to Him you hate. Those He especially loves, you especially love. 
Do so with a conscious intention of seeking to experience His presence. (Attend) None of that is fellowship unless you are consciously attending to God – paying attention to Him. That is the relational and experiential aspect. 
Maintain an attitude of receiving from God as a beneficiary (Receive). You do it all in the posture of an open-handed beggar before a generous, rich king. All day long – Join, Attend, and Receive. And all of that must grow up out of the soil of the truth of God’s Word. You go from truth to experience. Information for the sake of insight for the sake of intimacy. Never stop short of intimacy with God. 

Conclusion: A day in the life of a Christian
Take some time and figure out what fellowship with God all day long would look like in your case. I have a sample in your bulletin so you have an idea what I am talking about. You just think of all the different kinds of activities you do during your day. (Wake up, have devotions, get dressed, eat, work, spend time with your family, do church ministry, rest, watch the news, recreation, go to bed.) And for each one of those, fellowship is a little different. 
Wake up – Let your first thoughts be “Good morning dear Lord.” Commit your day to Him and remind yourself that the day’s main goal is to have as much fellowship with God as possible. 
Devotions – Spend time seeking hard after a rich experience of His presence. This is more important than anything else in your devotions. Either memorize a passage of Scripture, write one down, or print one out (or ask your pastor for some pre-printed ones). This passage of Scripture will be the centerpiece of your fellowship with God all day long. 
Personal preparation/care (dress, shower, etc.) – The principles you focused on in your devotions from Scripture will be very quickly forgotten unless you rehearse them in your mind right away. Refer several times to your slip of paper. As you shower, rejoice over having been cleansed from all the sins you committed yesterday! As you get dressed, remember the spiritual armor. A very real and very lethal enemy will try to catch you off guard today, and you really are in grave danger. Be on your guard! 
Eat – Scripture calls us to sanctify our food by seeing it as a gift from God. Compare the enjoyment of the flavors and the strength and all the other enjoyable aspects of eating with the corresponding effects on your soul that will take place when you have fellowship with God. That is why Scripture compares fellowship with God to eating and drinking so often – it’s a very good illustration. 
Work – Think of your work as activity that is being carried out right at your Father’s side – so that all day long you are bumping elbows with Him. The reason you work (at home or for an employer) is because the Lord of the universe called you to do that. So you are doing His work along with Him at His side. Any time you have a few free seconds, take a glance at your paper and throw some logs on the fire of your fellowship with Him. 
Family – Enjoy the members of your family because of the delight God takes in them, and because of the delight He takes in your delighting in them. Give them one of the greatest gifts you could possibly give them by sharing with them what you have on your paper, and by telling them of the experiences of fellowship with God that you had during the day. Serve Christ by serving them and fix your attention on Christ’s response more than on their gratitude or ingratitude. Just take delight in the smile of God as your serve Him by loving them. 
Ministry – Remind yourself that ministry in the Church has eternal significance that transcends even the family in importance (marriage and family are temporary – for this life only). Exult in the privilege of serving at the pleasure of the great King as one He personally called. 
Rest – The better it feels to sit down in a comfortable chair or lie down on a couch the better illustration it is of what it is like to experience God as a refuge and shelter and Giver of rest. As you delight in the rest let your soul either delight in rest in God that you already have or crave rest in God that you are seeking from Him. 
News – As you observe all that God is doing in His world, talk to Him about it and marvel at His wisdom. 
Bed – Kneel at your bedside just for a moment before getting in and recall God’s faithfulness that you experienced all day. As you lie down ask God to protect you through the night from evil thoughts and dreams that might be a hindrance to you tomorrow. For the next several hours you will be at your weakest and most vulnerable, and the enemy does not sleep. Then take delight in God’s promised care for you.

Psalm 4:8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

Benediction: 2 Cor.13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Fellowship with God Part 5 Joy through Ministry 1:4

Summary: Joy is better than relief (better to be happy in pain than to not be happy without pain). Joy is a feeling of happiness – an extremely desirable thing to have. Joy was the Apostles’ motive for ministry (selfishness is when you lift some personal desire above others’ best interests. But your joy is in their best interests.) Joy is not opposed to righteousness – it is required for righteousness. Get joy not by reducing suffering but though loving in ministry. The goal of ministry is spiritual growth in people which, if we love God, know how much God delights in spiritual growth in His saints, and offer our ministry as a conscious expression of love, will bring us great joy. 

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have observed, and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life-- 2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us-- 3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Introduction
Joy is better than relief
If you could change one thing about the circumstances in your life, what would it be? Most people would probably choose to eliminate some suffering or difficulty or pain. People tend to focus on the difficulties of life and assume that it is the suffering that is preventing them from being happy, so if they had one wish it would be to get rid of their suffering. It is a sad thing, because when those circumstances do change and that particular suffering does go away, they still are not happy. And there are people who have that exact same kind of suffering – or even worse – and they are full of joy. Think about this – if your life were full of joy - not phony joy or pretend happiness, but your heart really was filled full of genuine, exuberant, heartfelt joy, what would it matter what the other circumstances of your life were? Think of the painful things that you tend to think must be eliminated in order for you to be happy. If God came to you and said, “I’ll give you a choice. Either you can have that suffering go away (which may or may not result in you being happy), or you can have fullness of joy in your life even as that suffering continues,” which would you choose? Joy is more valuable than mere relief. 
It is amazing how much of Scripture is devoted to teaching us about joy. Today’s text is one of those passages. 

4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Definition of joy
The Greek word translated joy is chara. It means joy, a feeling of inner happiness, gladness, delight. Some people have tried to say it is not a feeling. That is dead wrong – it is a feeling. In James 4:9 it is the opposite of gloom.

James 4:9 Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

The word translated “gloom” refers to sorrow, despair, or being dejected. In several passages it is the opposite of grief.

John 16:20 You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.

In Heb.13:17 it is the opposite of the way you feel when you groan and complain. In Mt.13:20, 44 it is the feeling you have when you get something you really, really want. In Lk.10:17 it is the way you feel when you have great success in some important endeavor. In Lk.2:10 it is the way you feel when you get some terrific news. In Lk.15 it is the way you feel when you find some valuable thing that was lost, or when a broken relationship is restored. In Jn.16:21 it is the way a woman feels after she gives birth and sees her baby. In Acts 8:8 it is the way you feel if you were crippled or paralyzed and you have been instantly healed. In Acts 12:14 it is the way you feel when someone you dearly love returns to you. In the book of Hebrews it is a feeling that is so powerful that you would rather have it than anything else. In Heb.12:2 it was the feeling set before Christ that enabled Him to think little of His suffering on the cross. In Heb.10:34 the people’s joy was so extreme that when the people came and broke into their homes and took away all their stuff, they were happy! It was painful to lose all their stuff, but their joy was greater than that pain.
In Jn.16:22 Jesus said that no one can take this kind of joy away from you. The shallow joys of this world are easily taken away. If you have joy in your job, Satan can easily take away your joy by taking away your job – or your family or your health or your money or possessions or reputation or whatever it is that is the source of your joy. The joy that comes from earthly things cannot survive suffering. If the suffering is great enough it will eventually overwhelm the joy.
But joy in Christ cannot be taken away, because no one can take Christ away. That means not even suffering can take it away. Joy in Christ runs so deep that the feeling of happiness from it will have a bigger effect on how you feel than even the most horrible suffering or loss. It will be a joy so overpowering that even when you are weeping bitterly over some devastating loss- the loss of your health or of a job or of a loved one - even in those times, the sorrow and pain will be real, and it will hurt, but still you will feel more joy than sorrow.
How would you like to have that – a whole lot of it?

Motive for Ministry: Why should you serve?
The Apostles’ motive: Joy
John’s ministry of preaching the gospel cost him a lot – it got him banished to an island as a prisoner. The rest of the Apostles were killed for their ministries. What was the motive that drove them to be so devoted to ministry? It would be good for us to discover that motive, because most of us struggle with laziness, don’t we? So if we could discover a motive for ministry that is enough to drive a person to work like the Apostles worked, that would be a great thing.

4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

The motive that was so compelling that it drove them to lay down their very lives was joy. The earlier Greek copies of 1 John say “our joy.” Later on it got changed to “your joy.” That kind of a copying mistake is not surprising, since “your joy” seems like it makes a little better sense. The King James says “your joy,” because back in 1611 when the King James was published they did not have access to the early manuscripts that we have today. But the modern translations are correct – “our joy” is the original reading. John and the other Apostles carried out their ministries - and were motivated to keep at it even when they were beaten and mocked and imprisoned and put to death; and the motive that kept them moving through all that was their desire for fullness of joy. That was John’s motive and that was Paul’s motive.

2 Corinthians 2:3 I wrote this very thing so that when I came I wouldn't have pain from those who ought to give me joy

People ought to give you joy when you minister to them. He wrote what he wrote and preached what he preached and did the ministry that he did in order to get joy. In Php.2:2 he commanded that the Philippians be humble and loving toward each other in order to make Paul’s joy complete.
Is Seeking Joy Selfish?
Is that a proper motive for ministry? Is it appropriate for me to go through life with the goal of feeling good? Is that really a virtue?
A lot of people do not know what to do with joy in the Bible. On the one hand it is part of the fruit of the Spirit. It is both promised and commanded in Scripture. It is offered as an incentive. But on the other hand it seems like such a selfish thing to pursue. The Bible also talks about self-denial. How can the pursuit of your own joy be good if self-denial is also good? And so some people teach that it is okay to have joy as a part of your motive, but things like love or duty are much higher motives. Others take it even further and say that if self-interest is any part of your motive at all then your motive is bad. That comes out of the philosophy of the Stoics and Emmanuel Kant, and that influence has found its way into Christianity. The New Testament scholar T. W. Manson, commenting on the reward in Luke 14:14, says, "The promise of reward … is there as a fact. You do not live this way for the sake of reward. If you do you are not living in this way but in the old selfish way." People who teach that point to 1 Cor.13:5 – “Love is not self-seeking.” If you are seeking some benefit or reward, then you are being self-seeking, or selfish, and that destroys the morality of the act.
Is that true? If you do something because you enjoy it, does that make it selfish? If so, then it would be impossible to do a good deed unless you had no desire to do it (Because if you desire to do it, then you are getting enjoyment from doing it.) That would mean that if you desire anything good, then you cannot be good. The only way to be good is to not want to – that way you get no reward from it. Do you see how ridiculous that is? According to that philosophy it would be a sin to enjoy being kind to people. It would be a sin to take delight in helping someone who is in trouble.
The Bible teaches exactly the opposite of that. What makes you a good person is not doing good things when you donnot want to. What makes you a good person is wanting to do good things. In fact, the greatest measure of how good you are is your desires – what you love to do. Evil people are evil because of what they love, and righteous people are righteous because of what they love.

2 Tim.3:1-5 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, … not lovers of the good, … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

1 Tim.3:2-3 The overseer must be … a lover of money but one who loves what is good.

Ro.12:9 Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

God commands both righteous actions and righteous affections. The person who obeys both commands does better than the one who obeys only one.
So if God commands that we not only do good but that we also love doing good, then failure to enjoy doing good is sin – not the other way around. Selfishness is bad; self-interest is not bad. Selfishness is when you have desires that are not in someone else’s best interests, and you place those desires as a higher priority than the other person’s best interests. For example, if I have the desire to watch TV, but it is in my family’s best interest for me to shut the TV off and have family devotions with them, if I choose to just keep watching TV – that is sinful selfishness. However, if I have devotions with them because I desire to spend time with them in the Lord, and I desire to see them progress spiritually, and I desire to please the Lord, and I want the rewards God offers for serving Him, and all those desires are stronger than my desire to watch TV – that would be righteousness. It is the opposite of selfishness, even though I would be acting in my own self-interests. If doing that which is in your own self-interest were wrong, then you could never do anything right, because all good is in your best interests. And if God offers a reward and you thumb your nose at that reward and treat it as though it were no big deal that dishonors God.
Is not righteousness more important?
When I began the sermon by asking you if you would like to have joy, it may be that some of you were thinking this way: “I wouldn’t mind joy, but that is not my greatest desire. What I really, really want is righteousness. If I could just be rid of this sin in my life, if I could just be holy and pleasing to God, if I could just do something that would glorify and honor Him and delight Him that is all I care about.”
It is a good thing to care mostly about righteousness. But it is misguided to think that the pursuit of righteousness and the pursuit of joy are two different things. There is no greater way to glorify God than by having joy in Him. That shows Him to be the all-satisfying treasure that He is. And there is no greater way to conquer sin in your life than through joy in God. If you experience great happiness and delight in His presence, and you train your soul to realize that that happiness is forfeited when you prefer sin or cling to some idol, that will give you power in resisting sin that will make godly choices 1000 times easier to make.

How to Get Joy
So let’s see what we can learn from this verse about how to get joy.
Joy through addition, not subtraction
I mentioned earlier that people think if they could just eliminate some trial from their life they would be happy. But that is folly because when they eliminate those trials they find they are still not happy - and other people who have even worse trials are very happy. That is because joy does not come from subtracting pain from your life. Joy comes from adding something. John did not say, “We try to eliminate our suffering so our joy may be full.”
Joy through ministry

4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be full.

Joy comes through ministry. These things refers to everything he said in verses 1-3. The Apostles carried out their ministry of preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ because they wanted joy. It is significant that he points to joy rather than duty. He does not say, “We write these things because it is our duty, and we are committed to carry out what is expected of us.” Their motive was higher than mere duty. If you do your ministry at church, or if you are a good husband to your wife, or a good wife to your husband, and your motive is mainly a sense of duty, then you are probably not as good a wife or husband or minister as you think you are. The man who says to his wife, “I have no desire to be with you, and I am only taking you on this date because it is my duty before God – but I do not enjoy it one bit” – that is not love. When a man says, “I want you. I want to be with you. I want to talk to you and look at you and enjoy your personality. I want to hear your beautiful voice. I love your embrace. I love being around you. I cannot get enough of you.” His wife does not hear that and say, “Selfish! All you care about is what you want – what you enjoy.”
Non-joyful ministry is a sin. It dishonors people and it dishonors God, and it is a reproach on the name of Christ – and it angers Him.

Malachi 1:10–13 “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will accept no offering from your hands. 11 My name will be great among the nations … 12 "But you profane it by saying of the Lord's table, 'It is defiled,' and of its food, 'It is contemptible.' 13 And you say, 'What a burden!' and you sniff at it contemptuously," says the LORD Almighty. "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?" says the LORD. 

When you do exactly what God has told you to do out of a sense of duty, but on the inside your attitude is, “What a burden,” you are profaning the Lord’s great name. The opportunity to serve the King of kings is an unspeakable privilege. It is like being invited to a banquet, walking up to the food, sniffing at it, and turning up your nose. You come into a place that God calls His Temple – a church, and you look around at the people and the music and the way things are done, and you sniff at it contemptuously and turn up your nose: “I don’t care for that. That is not really my style. I could take that or leave it.” And you look over the list of available ministries and ways you can serve the body and you think, “I think I’ll pass”- that is deeply dishonoring to the Lord. It is absolutely unacceptable to serve the Lord with a “What a burden” attitude.
So what should you do if that is how you feel? Just drop out of ministry? If it is a burden for me to go over to someone’s house and encourage him, should I just stay home instead? No. If God commands us to encourage one another and He commands us to love doing it, then if you are breaking the second command (because you don’t love doing it), the solution is not to break the first one also. If you are disobeying the command to love, do not make it even worse by also disobeying the command to act. The solution is to keep obeying the first command and repent of your disobedience to the second command. As you are driving over to the person’s house, and it is not something you want to do, repent of your sinful affections, and cry out to God to show you the good of what it is you are doing (“Lord, open my eyes – help me see why this is such a privilege and should be an occasion of such joy), so that by the time you get there you are delighted to be there.
Grudging ministry is not only a reproach on the name of Christ, but it is also unloving to people.

Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Do you see that? If someone is serving you in ministry and his work is a burden to him rather than a joy – that is no advantage to you, which means it is a disadvantage to you. If I see my ministry as burdensome then I am stealing something from you. You will not profit from my ministry as much if I fail to have joy so that means the most loving thing I can do for you is to do exactly what John did and seek joy in ministry. If you try to minister to people, "It is a matter of indifference to me if he finds fellowship with God," you would be evil. If you are offering someone the greatest treasure imaginable, and your attitude is, “I don’t really care one way or another if he receives it,” you would be evil. If it really is a treasure, then the more you love that person the more you will desire that they receive it, and the happier you will be when they do receive it. The driving motive for all ministry should always be joy.
Joy through love
“But if I don’t have joy in my ministry, how do I get it?” To answer that question you need to understand the connection between joy and love. Love is what makes joy, joy. The deeper the love, the greater the joy. If you love Cheescake Factory cheesecake a little bit then you will have a little bit of joy when you go there. If you love it a lot you will have a lot of joy when you go there. How much joy would you get if your team won the Superbowl? If you do not care at all about football then it will bring you no joy. If you are a fanatic, it will bring you huge amounts of joy. Your joy cannot be any stronger than your love.
So if you find yourself not enjoying ministry – it is a drudgery, you are burned out, you cannot stand dealing with the people, it is too disorganized, too time-consuming - the solution is not to say, “I do not enjoy it therefore I am going to sit out of ministry for now.” Do not ever be content to be without joy in God – or to have meager amounts of joy in God. Keep seeking joy by continuing in ministry and increasing your love. If you want more excitement on Superbowl day, you need to increase your love for football. If you want more joy in ministry, you need to increase your love for God and His people.
So you can see that my last point and this point are really the same point. Joy through ministry and joy through love for people are exactly the same thing. The reason ministry brings joy is because it is the greatest way to show love to people.
And there are a lot of ways to express your love for God. You can express it in prayer and worship, and that brings joy. You can express it by the eagerness you have as you approach His Word. That brings joy. But the way of expressing love to God that will bring you the most joy is expressing your love for Him by loving His people. God wants us to focus more on loving people than on anything else, so He made that the expression of love for Him the one that will bring us the most joy.

2 John 1:4 It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth

3 John 3 It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

John was an old man. He had experienced a lot of adventures and a lot of pleasures and a lot of wonderful things, but there was not a single thing in the world that could possibly make him feel more happiness than the spiritual progress of God’s people. Not money, not sex, not vacations, not recreation, not food, not all his success and fame in the Church - there was no pleasure in life greater for him than this. And again, John speaks for all the Apostles.

Philippians 2:2 make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

1 Thessalonians 3:9 How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you?

1 Thessalonians 2:19 For what is our hope, our joy … Is it not you? 20 Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

2 Corinthians 7:4 I have great confidence in you; I take great pride in you….in all our troubles my joy knows no bounds.

Now, maybe some of you are thinking, I’ve poured myself out in love for people and it brought me hardly any joy at all. In fact, I am much happier when I am at home alone than when I am with Christians at church. How do we account for that? How do we explain the fact that ministering to people made John’s joy complete, it made Paul’s joy overflow, it even filled up Jesus’ heart with great joy, and yet so many times when we love each other it does not increase our joy? Let’s think through the possible answers to that question.
How about this – Could it be that the reason some of us do not get a lot of joy out of loving people is simply because that is just not our cup of tea? Certain activities are appealing to some people and not others. Some people like to play chess, others do not. Some think shuffleboard is exciting, others think it is boring. And some people are extroverts and love being around people; others are naturally introverted and it is draining to be around people. So could it be that some of us do not get a lot of joy out of loving people just because of our personality type? No. That is not a possibility. Scripture is emphatic about the fact that loving God by loving His people is the main source of joy for the Christian. There are no asterisks in my Bible in those passages that restrict the application to one personality type. If you experience loving God through loving His people, it is guaranteed that it will generate great joy in your life no matter what your personality type is.
So where does that leave us? What other explanations are there for why so many of us have not experienced what the Apostles describe as their experience in loving people? It seems to me there are three possibilities: (1) We do not love God enough. The intensity of the joy is dependent upon how much you love God. The stronger my love for God the more enjoyable it will be for me to love those He loves. (2) We do not have a good understanding or awareness of how much delight God takes in His people. The thing that causes us to esteem other believers highly and take great delight in them is the fact that they are so precious to God. So if your idea of that preciousness is foggy, your esteem for them is not going to be as high. When you really love someone, what makes them happy makes you happy. So it is important for us to understand how happy it makes God when spiritual progress is made by His people, when sinners repent and return to Him. The entire chapter of Luke 15 is devoted to teaching that. Jesus taught three parables in a row all about how much joy is in the heart of God when a sinner repents. Jesus compares God to a shepherd, a woman, and a father. First, the shepherd, who leaves the flock in order to search for the lost sheep.

Luke 15:5-7 When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders, 6 and coming home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, because I have found my lost sheep!' 7 I tell you, in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don't need repentance. 

That parable is all about joy in heaven. Then He tells another one that is also about joy in heaven. In this one a woman loses a very valuable coin, and sweeps the house and searches carefully to find it.

9 When she finds it, she calls her women friends and neighbors together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, because I have found the silver coin I lost!' 10 I tell you, in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels over one sinner who repents." 

Again – it is all about joy in heaven. Then He tells a third parable. This one is a long one about a son who goes astray and leaves his father, and then later he comes to his senses and repents and comes back to his father with an attitude of humility. 

20 So he got up and went to his father. But while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him. 21 The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22 "But the father told his slaves, 'Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Then bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let's celebrate with a feast, 24 because this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' So they began to celebrate. 

Then the older brother starts to complain. He is not one bit happy. He is like the Pharisees who were grumbling because Jesus was spending time with repentant sinners. In fact, that is the whole reason Jesus told this parable. Look back at the opening verses of the chapter.

Luke 15:1-3 All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes were complaining, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!" 3 So He told them this parable:

They saw repentant sinners being welcomed and it bothered them. And so Jesus told three parables that are all about the joy of God over repentant sinners. And the third story is especially beautiful – until the end, when that dumb older brother chimes in and ruins the entire story. And that is Jesus’ point. The Pharisees are like that older brother. Jesus told this parable in order to show them how different their affections were from God’s. When God is rejoicing, they are grumbling. So the more you love God the more you will rejoice when people are getting closer to God and repenting of sin. And that is what the father tries to explain to the older brother.

32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"

So all that is to show you how exuberantly happy God is over spiritual progress in His people. He is like that shepherd; He is like that woman; and He is like that father.
Now, I told you there were three possibilities for why we fail to have joy when we love people through ministry. We do not love God enough. We do not have a good understanding or awareness of how much delight God takes in His people. Now let me give you a third possibility. It could be that we fail to get joy from loving people because what we are doing is not really a conscious, intentional expression of love for God. Maybe there is a great deal of love for God in your heart, and maybe you understand how much God loves His people and desires to see them progress spiritually, but when you love people you do not make the connection. Your love for people terminates on those people. It just lands on them and goes nowhere else. You love them for their sake alone, and not as a conscious act of fellowship with God. When you look at them you do not see beings who are eternally precious to God – you just see people.
There is a special love in my heart for the children of my dearest friends. But if I saw those children as just random kids – and did not know they were my friends’ kids, then my affection for them and delight in them would not be as great. In order for this to work it is essential that we learn to see one another through God’s eyes – as His dear, precious, beloved children. We need to look at those seated around us and see people over whom there is great rejoicing in heaven. See that person sitting near you? If that person is a Christian then when they first repented of their sins and came to Christ, there was a thunderous, bone-rattling sound of laughter and singing and shouts of joy coming from the very throne of God. And if you were to do something this morning or this week – use your spiritual gift in some way that, directly or indirectly led to them moving a little closer to God and making some spiritual progress, those thunderous shouts of joy would happen again. God would be exuberantly happy with them and exuberantly happy with you. You spend an hour in the nursery so some parent can hear some exhortation from God’s Word, and that results in increased godliness, heaven explodes with joy! You greet a visitor, or pray for someone in your small group, or encourage someone who is down, or give of your finances joyfully, or do something to make this facility more conducive for ministry, or whatever your ministry is; and as a result some folks profit spiritually from the ministry of this church; God is deeply moved in His great heart with a happiness that is greater than anything we could imagine. And when you understand how much God loves to see that, so that all of your ministry toward us, and all of your acts of love toward us are all conscious gestures of your love for God; that is when the real joy will come. All of our acts of ministry and love must be intentional expressions of love for God in order for them to produce the kind of joy they are supposed to produce.
So when we learn how pleased God is with the spiritual growth of His people, and we increase in our love for God, and we help His people make progress spiritually as a conscious expression of love toward God; when we do all three of those, that is when ministry will bring us full, complete, unbounded joy that is greater than any suffering. 
The goal of ministry: Their joy
So the goal of ministry is God’s joy. We serve in ministry because nothing makes us happier than the joy of God. And what is it that we are trying to accomplish in ministry? When the Apostles worked so hard in ministry with people, what was it they were working to achieve in people’s lives?

2 Corinthians 1:24 we are workers with you for your joy, because it is by faith that you stand firm.

They worked for the joy of the people. You know your ministry is a success not when you fill a stadium with thousands of people, or you make the cover of Christianity Today magazine – or get on Larry King; you know your ministry is a success when you bring people to a point of having joy in God. If you can manage to cause someone to have a smile on their face that is not an expression of delight in some earthly thing, but an expression of delight in God, then you have had success.
The inseparability of loving God and loving people 
So you can see why love for God and love for people is so inseparable. As we talked about last week during the Q&A - if you think you can love God without loving people (you go up into the mountains by yourself on Sunday morning to worship, so your love for God is a private affair), you are greatly mistaken. If your love for God is not expressed through loving people then it does not exist.
And the same logic works from the other side. People who think they are automatically loving God just because they feed the poor and show kindness to people, but they pay no attention to God Himself – they are mistaken too. There is no true love for people that is not rooted in love for God.
Love for God and love for people cannot be separated. And if they are separated then what is left is not true love at all. But when they are united together, then you can hardly distinguish between the two.

Psalm 16:2-3 I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good besides You." 

It is not that he had 99.9% of his delight in God and .01 in other things. God was 100% of his delight, and outside that he had zero delight. But what about the saints? If 100% of his delight is in God, does that mean he takes no delight in the saints?

3 As for the saints who are in the land, they are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.

If some of your delight is in God and some of your delight is in people, you have split apart what should not be spit apart. The goal is to have 100% of your delight in people in such a way that all that delight is really delight in God.

Conclusion
If you are not involved in loving God’s people through ministry in the Church, or you feel you are not doing enough, we have something that may help you with that. On TreasuringGod.com there is a section on the menu called “Community.” If you click on that and then go to the “Serve in a Ministry” page you can find a long list of ministry openings at Agape. And for those of you who are already serving in ministry (which is most everyone), always double check your attitudes. Make sure you never dishonor God by serving with a “What a burden” attitude.” And make all of your ministry a conscious, intentional expression of love for God by loving His people. And make sure your motive in ministry is joy in the Lord – the joy that comes through seeing people receive spiritual benefits and growth.

Benediction: Ps 100: Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. 

Sin in the Christian Life Part 1 God is Light 1:5-7	

Summary: God is like light in that He is the source of all truth and exposes truth. He cannot be mixed with darkness, which means fellowshipers with Him do not walk in the darkness (that is, live in a manner that is inconsistent with the truth about themselves and about God). Walkers in the light do that (step into darkness), but they do not walk in the darkness because they return to the light (repentance). Return by seeking restored intimacy with God. You know it is time to stop grieving and return to rejoicing when you feel the joy, peace, etc. of His presence.
 
Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. 6 If we say, "We have fellowship with Him," and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, "We have not sinned," we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

Introduction: The problem of Christian sin
Premise 1: God is light
Preaching about God’s nature
God is like light (it is a metaphor)
The metaphor of light in Scripture
John’s use – Truth or that which exposes truth
Premise 2: There is no darkness in Him
Conclusion: Fellowshipers with light can’t walk in darkness
Walking in darkness means behaving as though truth isn’t true
Walking in the Light
Living according to Truth about God and Self
About self- sinner
About God- Must have fellowship with the Apostles (forced to choose)
Walkers in the light sin
Future sin not yet forgiven
Walking in Darkness means never coming into the light
Not a matter of being “characterized”
Never comes into the light
Don’t walk in the darkness!
Satan will tell you to wait to step back into the light
David’s return to the light
Not easy in instant
How to know when to stop grieving and start rejoicing

Introduction: The problem of Christian sin
When you read through the New Testament you read a lot about our new heart and new nature, and that Christians are holy and righteous and pure, and yet our own personal experience is the experience of failure after failure and sin after sin. There are so many passages in Scripture about the righteousness of the believer, and not so many about the problem of sin in the life of the believer. There are not a lot of them, but there are some, and today’s passage is one of them. Starting here in 1:5 all the way through 2:2, John addresses the problem of sin in the life of the Christian. 
And he has a very gripping way of introducing this section.

Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you 

John says, I walked and talked with Jesus during His earthly ministry, and let me tell you what Jesus told me. That is about as compelling an introduction as a person could possibly have – “Let me give you the message that God in human flesh told me to deliver to you.”

Premise 1: God is light
Preaching about God’s nature

Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light

That is what Jesus told John to tell us. If you boil it all down to one statement, it is a statement that begins with the words “God is.” I regret the fact that more of the sermons that I have preached in my lifetime do not have “God is…” as the first two words in the title. I think a lot of failure in the Church and in individual Christians’ lives is due to the fact that we tend to want to skip directly to “how to” without starting with “God is.” There is no great advantage to increasing in godliness if you do it in a way that brings glory to you rather than to God, so God made it so we will not have success unless we do it by delighting in God and experiencing His attributes. 
God is like light (it is a metaphor)
Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light

What does that mean? When John says, “God is light,” obviously that is a metaphor. God is not photons. When you send a beam of light through a prism you did not just bend God. He is not literally light any more than Jesus is literally a sheep gate or a loaf of bread. When John says, “God is light,” it means that God is like light.
So then the question is, in what way does John mean to compare God to light? What are the points of similarity that John has in mind and that he expects the readers to focus on? He is not like light in very way. He does not travel at the speed of light (in fact He does not travel at all). He is not affected by gravity, or dependent on a source like light is. There are a number of ways God is unlike light. So in what ways are we to think of Him as being similar to light?
The metaphor of light in Scripture
Scripture makes frequent use of the metaphor of spiritual light to describe a number of things. Sometimes it refers to goodness and righteousness as opposed to evil. (Isa.5:20) 
Sometimes light refers to joy as opposed to sorrow and gloom. (Ps.97:11, Micah 7:8-9)
Sometimes light is used to describe beauty and glory. (Isa.60:1, Lk.2:32)
Sometimes it is used as a metaphor for spiritual life. (Ps.36:9, Jn.1:4))
And sometimes light is a metaphor for salvation and all that goes with it. (Isa.58:8, Ps.27:1, Ps.36:9)
And very often – probably most often – light is a metaphor for truth or that which exposes the truth.
John’s use – Truth or that which exposes truth
And that is the way John uses the metaphor throughout his writings. Light is one of John’s favorite words. He uses it 66 times in his writings. And when John talks about light some of those other ideas are probably also included, but the main emphasis is always on light as truth or that which exposes the truth.
So the statement “God is light” means He generates nothing but truth. His representation of Himself and of everything else is completely accurate and without any deception. No wrong thoughts or ideas ever come from Him. He does not lack knowledge in any area, and if anything in Him is hidden it is because of our blindness – not because of darkness in Him. So far all of John’s opponents no doubt agree. In fact, judging from the writings of that time there is probably no statement that would be more agreeable to the false teachers John was writing against than the statement that God is light. At this point there is nothing but a big chorus of amens from everybody. 

Premise 2: There is no darkness in Him
But then John takes them on a little journey through logic. If God is light, then in Him there is absolutely no darkness at all. The structure John uses here is very, very strong – not one bit of darkness. Pretty hard to argue against that. If you mix white paint and black paint you get grey. If you mix light and darkness you just get light, and no darkness. It is impossible for there to be darkness in light. So they cannot argue with John’s first premise. If there is light, darkness is not there. And if there is darkness, light is not there. They cannot coexist. So there can be no union between God and darkness.

Conclusion: Fellowshipers with light cannot walk in darkness
At this point John’s opponents are probably still on board. But then he takes the next logical step.

6 If we say, "We have fellowship with Him," and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.

This is where all the amens die out. Having fellowship with God, according to John’s logic here, has something to do with walking. Walking just refers to moving through life. Every moment you live you take another step down whatever path you are on. So walking is the day to day, moment by moment activity of living life. This is where John confronts their error head on. From what we can gather, it seems that these people thought fellowship with God was something that really had nothing to do with day to day life. It is religion. It is something that takes place during times of prayer or meditation or worship. It is what you do at church.
And John just blasts away with both barrels at that kind of thinking and his logic is impeccable. If God is light, then there can be no trace of darkness in Him. So someone whose day to day actions in his life are darkness is not in Him. And if he claims to have fellowship with God he is a liar. He is a liar with his mouth and a liar with his life. It is not just that he fails to tell the truth – John says he does not do the truth. The truth is something that must be believed, told, and carried out. People who claim to know God but who walk in the darkness are liars inside and out. John uses strong words. It is not just that they are mistaken – they are liars.
Does that mean they always know they are in error and they are intentionally lying? I don’t think so. I don’t think John’s point is that they are intentionally lying. Rather it is that their teaching and their claims and the way they live their lives deceives people. And that is the issue. That is what John is upset about. These false teachers are leading people in the church astray. Their false doctrines are ruining people’s lives, and some people are ending up in eternal hell forever because of it. If something you are doing or saying is leading people astray, your life is a horrible lie because it deceives. Doing it on purpose is worse than doing it ignorantly, but either way deceiving people into hell is a despicable, wicked thing to do. And that is what you do when you claim to know God and walk in the darkness.
Walking in darkness means behaving as though truth isn’t true
So what does it mean to walk in the darkness? Walking in darkness is the way you live when you have no knowledge of the truth. It is the way you live when you are detached from reality in the spiritual realm.
When you go for a walk in a pitch dark forest – why do you stumble? You stumble because the reality is that there is a log in the path, but you don’t know that because you can’t see. If there is light we can look and see the log and behave accordingly (by avoiding it). But when you cannot see you behave as though there were no log. You just keep walking and then fall on your face. Walking in the darkness means living a life that does not comport with or agree with or correspond to spiritual truth.
In the real world sin is deadly, and is never worth it.
In the real world the things of God are more wonderful than anything else.
In the real world Jesus Christ is the only way to God.
In the real world eternity matters far more than this short life.
In the real world the Bible offers you a steak dinner and television offers you pond scum.
In the real world God’s Word is reliable and our own wisdom is not reliable.
And in the real world, the real truth is that my life is shot through with sin and all kinds of evil.
That is reality. That is what you can see when you walk in the light. Walking in the darkness means living in a way that does not match up with that. It is when you live as though sin is sometimes worth it - and some pleasures are more wonderful than nearness to God - and this life matters more than eternity - and sometimes you should go with your own wisdom over what God says - and you are really not such a bad person. That is the darkness.

Walking in the Light
Living according to Truth about God and Self
About self- sinner
There are two parts to walking in the light. Walking in the light means walking in a way that is consistent with the truth about God and walking in a way consistent with the truth about yourself. The truth about yourself is that you are a finite, created being who has rebelled against your Creator and is deserving of eternal punishment in hell, and you have zero power to remedy that situation.

About God- Must have fellowship with the Apostles (forced to choose)
That is the truth about self. The truth about God can be summarized in one word – Jesus. The truth about God is whatever Jesus revealed about God as reported by the Apostles. If you disagree with anything John wrote or any of Paul’s doctrine, or Peter’s or James’ or any other Apostle - you are not in the light.
It was very easy for John’s readers when he said, “God is light.” That was easy to agree with.
But when that requires that you agree with John and the Apostles (which is what he has been saying right from verse one), that puts them on the spot.
Now they have to choose – either follow John and the Apostles or follow the false teachers.

2 John 1:11 for the one who says, "Welcome," to him shares (koinonia) in his evil works.

You can either have koinonia (fellowship) with those teachers (which means you have koinonia (participation) in their wicked work, or you can have koinonia (fellowship) with John and the Apostles and in so doing have fellowship with God. John forces them to choose – they cannot have both.
There is an important lesson in that. It is not enough to just accept the truth; you must also reject error. It always amazes me when people tell me they love some radio preacher who is really sound, and in the same breath they tell me their other favorite teacher is some guy who is way out in left field doctrinally. And it is amazing to me how often that happens. I used to think everyone who loved the truth would automatically reject error - if they love some really good teacher, they would not like the bad teachers. But that is not always the case. Some people have appetites like a goat – they love a good, juicy, tender cut of prime rib and they love a nice tin can. They like both garbage and food, and cannot seem to tell the difference. Part of becoming a mature Christian is learning to both accept the truth and reject error.
Walkers in the light sin
And then John says not even that is enough. It is not enough to just accept truth and reject error in your mind. John requires that we live in a way that matches the truth. And if you live in a way that is not consistent with the truth, any claim you make to fellowship with God is a lie. You do not know God at all.
Now my guess is that nobody in this room who is paying attention is comfortable right now. Because if walking in the darkness means living in opposition to the truth, then we are all guilty. We all do that. We are all guilty of behaving as though God were not the greatest treasure – we do it many times every day. As James 3:2 says – we all stumble in many ways. If you just read through verse six it sounds like John is saying that unless you are sinlessly perfect you are in the darkness and have no fellowship with God. John is going to say a lot of things in this book that sound like that.

1 John 3:9 Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God.

That really sounds like perfectionism, doesn’t it? What are we to make of this? If we just deal as honestly as possible with the text, and let John say what he is saying without fudging his words to fit our theology or experience, don’t we have to conclude that a true believer is sinless? That is what those who teach perfectionism say.
But let’s see what John himself says. In verse seven he gives us the alternative to walking in the darkness – walking in the light. Let’s see what walking in the light looks like. See if this sounds to you like sinlessness:

7 But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 
 
So is John saying, “If you are sinless then He will purify you from all your sin”? That would be nonsense. If you are sinless what do you need purification for – there is no impurity there. Someone might say, “Maybe he means that if you attain sinlessness, then God will cleanse you from all past sin.” But that is not what he is saying, because the word “cleanses” is in the present tense. That tense points to ongoing, linear action. All the verbs in this verse are present tense. If you are currently walking in the light then you are currently being cleansed from all your sin. So these are not sins of your past. These are sins you are currently committing. So if you walk in the light as He is in the light, Jesus’ blood will purify you from all the sins you are currently committing. 
Future sin not yet forgiven
By the way – not only does that rule out the idea that the sins are only in the past, it also rules out another idea that is very popular in our day – the idea that the moment you become a Christian God forgives all your sins, past, present, and future. The “and future” part does not come from the Bible. That is a product of human reasoning, and it is incorrect human reasoning. This verse is very clear that for the Christian, being forgiven is a current, ongoing reality. The sins you are committing now are being forgiven now.
Walking in Darkness means never coming into the light
So John’s own words prevent us from interpreting anything he says in this book to mean that the Christian does not sin. And in case verse seven slips past you, he gives us verses eight, nine and ten.

8 If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, "We have not sinned," we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

So now we know that walking in the darkness is not just another way of saying “sin.” The people who are walking in the light and the people who are walking in the darkness are both sinning. So what is the difference? What is the difference between a person who sins regularly but who walks in the light and someone who walks in the darkness? If darkness is living in a way that does not align with the truth, then every time we sin we step into the darkness, right? So evidently there is a difference between that and actually walking in the darkness. What is the difference?

Not a matter of being “characterized” 
Some people say the difference is a matter of magnitude or frequency of sin. They say that if your life is characterized by sin, then you are in the darkness. But if sin is the exception to the rule in your life, then you are in the light. I do not buy that answer. I do not think that is the right answer, and I am glad it is not the right answer. Because that would be about as unhelpful as I can imagine an answer being. How many times do you have to sin before you are characterized by sin? The truth is, if I am honest - I am characterized by sin. I fall short of the glory of God in my actions and thoughts and motives and inclinations and affections and attitudes every minute of the day. Since I have been a Christian I have committed thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of sins. Big ones, little ones, minor ones, major ones, socially acceptable ones, scandalous ones. I have sinned knowingly. I have sinned repeatedly. I have sinned defiantly.

Galatians 5:17 For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don't do what you want.

That’s me. I want to be righteous, and I want to eliminate sin from my life altogether, but I fail to do what I want.

James 3:2 We all stumble in many ways.

That’s me. Galatians 5:17 and James 3:2 are true of me every day of my life. And do not get too down on me because it is true of you every day too. Anybody ever had a day when you were so spiritual and so holy that you opened your Bible and Gal.5:17 wasn’t there that day? James 3:2 was blank? How about… 

Ecclesiastes 7:20 There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sin

Proverbs 20:9 Who can say, "I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin"?

1 Kings 8:46 there is no one who does not sin

We all sin throughout the day every day. If the standard were that you cannot be characterized by sin we would all be in trouble because if doing something all day every day because you freely choose to is not being characterized by something then I don’t know what characterized means.
So back to our question. We are all characterized in a huge way by sin. We all take countless steps into the darkness every day. So what is the difference between that and someone who actually walks in the darkness?

Never comes into the light
The answer is this – the one who walks in the darkness is someone who never comes into the light. Those who walk in the light and step into the darkness, grieve over that decision, and quickly step back into the light. But when those who walk in the darkness see the light, they avoid it.

John 3:19-20 This, then, is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. 

When those who walk in the light stumble into the darkness, they retreat back into the light. Those who walk in the darkness do all they can to dodge the light, because they would rather remain in the darkness than be exposed for what they really are. If you want to see the difference between one who walks in the darkness and one who walks in the light just look at David and Saul. Both men committed terrible sins. Both men many times behaved in ways that were not consistent with the truth. But when Saul did that he would respond by remaining in the darkness. He would rationalize his sin, justify himself, adjust God’s Word, shift blame to others – whatever it took to avoid being exposed and avoid having to give up being the captain of his own soul. But David would step back into the light. He would return to God in repentance. That is the difference. The person who walks in the darkness is one who will admit to sin, he will say he is sorry, he will even shed tears; but he will not step into the light. He will not let go of his treasured idols. He will not give up the things or people he thinks he needs to be happy. He will not allow the light of the truth to shine on his life and expose all the wickedness. He may admit a few things, but only carefully selected things. Mostly he dodges the light.
The one who walks in the light is different. When he steps into the darkness he sees the light and longs to return to it. And so he steps back into it – sin and all – he braces himself for the excruciating pain of all his wickedness being exposed. And as soon as he steps back into the light, to his amazement and delight, all his wickedness vanishes. The ugly, black blemishes disappear, and he is totally cleansed and fit to have fellowship with a God who is pure light.

Don’t walk in the darkness!
Satan will tell you to wait to step back into the light
I want to urge everyone this morning – do not walk in the darkness. When you sin the enemy will try to use your guilt to destroy you. He will do everything he can to keep you in the darkness as long as he possibly can. He will tell you that because of your sin you are now unfit to enjoy closeness with God, and it is not appropriate for you to seek the presence of God just yet. He will tell you that you need to do some penance – or something to make up for what you did. Or he will tell you to just lay low for a while until God’s anger blows over. Satan will tell you whatever he has to tell you to keep you from seeking hard after nearness to God.
David’s return to the light
That psalm describes what it was like for David when he stepped into the darkness for a time. During the time when he was in the darkness – not confessing his sin…

Psalm 32:3-4 When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. 

That is what it is like for the Christian while he remains in the darkness. You cover up your sin, lie about it, pretend it is not so bad, make excuses for it, blame someone else, pretend you are something you are not - all the time you continue to refuse to face the truth about your sin because you cannot face the humiliation of exposure, you start to rot away from the inside out. People who walk in the darkness just stay in that condition indefinitely. But believers cannot stay in that condition, because God’s chastising hand is heavy on them, and it is so miserable they finally decide they will do anything to be back in the light.

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"-- and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

He came into the light, sin and all, and the moment he did so he experienced exactly what John described – the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed him from every sin. He experienced the blessedness that comes only when you step out of the darkness back into the light. That is why he starts the psalm by saying, 

1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. 

The deceit is the darkness. It is the denial of the truth. We do that when we are not really ready to give up the sin. We make excuses and justify what we are doing and we live in a lie, because we are not really repentant. We might feel bad for our sin, and we might even admit to committing sin, but we are still living in some kind of lie that makes it so we do not have to take the hard, painful, excruciating steps of cutting off our access to that sin.
But when you let go of all that and confess the truth about yourself and about God and about reality, and you seek to be restored to nearness to Him, your sin is wiped away.

6 Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found

(That phrase “while you may be found” is a warning. The chance to step back into the light is not available forever.) But if you take it, and you step back into the light, then when the mighty waters of God’s judgment rise they will not reach you. God will be your hiding place that preserves you from His wrath.
Not easy in instant
Now, I don’t want to oversimplify this process. When I say, “Step back into the light” that sounds like something that is very easy to do. It is usually not. The reason we step into the darkness in the first place is because something deep within us loves the darkness and prefers it to the light. And so in order to step back into the light something has to be done about that part of us that loves the darkness. It has to be overcome with a greater love for the light – love for God. That is why the most important thing you could be doing every single day is cultivating a deeper love for God, and a greater appreciation of and experience of His attributes. That is why I am working on a devotional – “100 Attributes of God.” I do not know if the book will end up helping anyone else; I am mainly writing it for me – so that I start out each day thinking deeply about some wonderful attribute of God, and I spend that day seeking to experience that attribute so I will love Him more because the more I love the light the more I will prefer it over the darkness.
You will not be able to turn your back on the darkness and step back into the light out of mere resolve. That will work temporarily, but ultimately you will pursue what you love. The only way to really genuinely return to the light is to change your affections so you love the light more.
And even then – even when your heart is transformed and you begin to crave the light and prefer it over the darkness, even then the restoration is not always immediate. When Micah stepped into the darkness, and then repented and turned back to God, God’s anger at Micah lingered for a time. Restoration into the light did not happen instantaneously.

Micah 7:8-9 Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. 9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.

This is such a beautiful picture of what it looks like to return to the light when you have sinned and God is angry with you. Even though He is angry and you are feeling the sting of His rod, the only place of refuge is His arms of love. That is the only place in this universe where you can flee from His anger. So Micah says, “I am going to just seek restored intimacy with Him, and wait until it happens.” So often our temptation is to seek it halfheartedly, and if we don’t find it within a couple minutes, instead of waiting on God we just revert to some substitute to make us feel better. The warmth and joy of restoration that comes from nearness to Him does not come instantly or easily, so we say, “I’ll just find something that will deaden the pain here in the darkness.” And so we open the refrigerator, or click on the TV, or log on to the Internet, or whatever. Anything that is easier than seeking hard after God.

How to know when to stop grieving and start rejoicing 
In the Agape 101 class last week the question came up, “How do you know how long you should grieve over your sin?” On the one hand we know God does not want us to beat ourselves up over our sin forever, right? He wants us to know the joy David talked about in Ps.32 – the joy of forgiveness and cleansing. He does not want us to mope around in self-loathing even after He has forgiven us and restored us. But on the other hand God does not want us to take our sin lightly either. Part of true repentance is a broken, contrite heart. When we sin against God in some egregious way, and our whole repentance process of confessing our sin and returning to God lasts all of 30 seconds, that does not match the Biblical pictures we have of proper sorrow over sin in repentance.
So how do you know the balance? How do you know when you have grieved enough and it is time to return to rejoicing in the Lord and in His forgiveness? I think a good answer to that question is right there in Micah seven. That whole passage is looking forward to something, isn’t it?

Micah 7:8-9 …Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. 9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness.

He is grieving and sorrowing under the chastisement of God – and he is looking forward to the time when that will be over. How will he know when it is over? When he is back in the light and sees (experiences) God’s light and restoration.
The most bitter and painful form of chastisement from God is when He withdraws His presence from you. Any suffering in life can be endured with joy as long as you have the nearness of God’s presence. But when He withdraws His presence not even the greatest joys of life can bring joy and satisfaction to your soul.
So you know the time of grieving is over when God grants you access once again to the nearness of His presence. Scripture says in His presence is joy and life and peace. So you sin, you repent, you are grieving and sorrowing in anguish of soul, and that pain and aguish drives you to seek hard after renewed nearness to God, and you keep doing that and keep doing that – even though He seems so distant and there is no joy, you keep seeking with all your heart until finally there is a glimmer of joy in your heart - joy that comes not from some earthly thing, but joy that is a direct result of fellowship with Him. He opens your eyes to understand and appreciate some wonderful thing in His Word. Or He allows your heart to be delighted in the experience of some attribute. Or He drains away your anxiety and gives you a taste of peace as you seek after Him. Those kinds of experiences are God saying, “Okay, the time in the woodshed is over. It is time for me to gather you into my arms and comfort you. It is time for restoration of the closeness and intimacy of our Father-son or Father-daughter relationship. The discipline is over.”
How long does that take? It is totally up to God. Sometimes it takes a long time. God wants us to understand the seriousness of departing from nearness to Him. Sometimes, even though we have repented and are seeking hard after Him, He waits a long time to grant the joy and peace that come from His presence. That is when the psalmists start crying out, “How long Oh Lord?”

Psalm 13:1-3 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? … 3 Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death

Sometimes God will withhold the nearness of His presence so long it feels like if He waits any longer you will die. Times like that reveal what is really in our hearts. When God does that will we give up? Or will we be like David and just keep pressing after Him because the only alternative is death? Will we seek some substitute, or will we be like Peter and say, “Where else will we go – You alone have eternal life”?
God does that because he wants us to seek wholeheartedly after Him. God does not want you to respond to your sin by beating yourself up in some kind of effort to pay for your own sin. Self-inflicted punishment is not the solution. If you need to be beaten up or punished, let God’s chastisement beat you up. Let yourself feel the acute pain of being banished from nearness to Him for a time – let that be the consequence for sin that causes the greatest pain.
And let God be the one who is in charge of when that consequence is lifted. Sometimes you will commit some horrible sin against God and come to Him in repentance, and seek nearness to Him, and right away – immediately – you open up your Bible and seek hard after Him, and you find joy and peace and sweet fellowship with Him come right away! Accept that! Don’t say, “No, I have to be punished first!” If God decides to bypass the woodshed, that is His perfect wisdom – don’t argue! Just enjoy closeness with Him, and let yourself be deeply and profoundly moved over the fact that God showed up in the woodshed with gifts and open arms instead of the rod in this particular instance.
And if you do not know for sure if what you are experiencing is really nearness to Him or some imagined restoration that is not reality- just remember this: you can never go wrong with seeking hard after God. If the restoration has happened or it has not yet happened the main thing you need to do is the same – seek hard after nearness to Him. And if you are not sure if you have attained it, seek even harder after it. To whatever degree you have joy in His presence rejoice over that and to whatever degree you do not, grieve over that and seek harder after Him.
But always remember – the goal of repentance is not to punish yourself to make up for your sin. The main goal is not to alleviate your conscience and it is not to make you feel better about yourself. It is to be restored to intimacy with God – period.
Sometimes we sin and we are not even upset about loss of intimacy with God. We are upset because we failed. We are mad at ourselves because we proved ourselves to be weak or evil. We are upset because we have to deal with a guilty conscience or some painful earthly consequences. We are bothered because of the embarrassment.
When you repent of your sin, search your heart and ask yourself, “What is it that I am trying to achieve? Am I doing this just to get rid of the pain of failure, or guilt, or embarrassment, or earthly consequences?” None of those are real repentance. Even wicked people want to be rid of those things. True repentance is a heart that says, “God is light, and nearness to that light is better than life at its best. I have stepped into the darkness and I want more than anything else to be restored to nearness to the One who is the light of life.” When that is your attitude, rejoice, because the blood of His Son Jesus is purifying you from every sin!

Benediction: 1 Timothy 6:15-16 God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Sin in the Christian Life Part 2 What is Fellowship? 1:6-7

Summary: Fellowship with God is the most important thing there is. It is the summary of the Christian, the whole of what God calls us to, and the solution to all our problems. John puts fellowship with one another where we expect fellowship with God, showing the two to be inseparably connected. There is no fellowship with people apart from fellowship with God because fellowship with people is sharing together in God. And there is no fellowship with God apart from fellowship with people because God loves people and requires that we love them in order for us to be near Him (think of the love you receive from the Church because God is like that!) Watch out for the “I don’t need friends” pride and the “It is your fault when my needs aren’t met” pride. WALK IN THE LIGHT! 

Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. 6 If we say, "We have fellowship with Him," and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, "We have not sinned," we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

Fellowship with God
The most important thing
Why would someone who is not having fellowship with God claim to have fellowship with God? Even unbelievers seem to intuitively know that fellowship with God is a desirable thing. God has planted in us a desire to have fellowship with Him - so much so that even when we are not having fellowship with Him we invent ways to convince ourselves that we really are. Think about it – what could be greater than fellowship – personal, favorable interaction with God? If it is true that God is the Creator, then He is the only source of life, the only source of blessing, the only source of health, joy, safety, provision, salvation, forgiveness, meaning in life, strength, healing, power, happiness, wisdom, truth, delight, fulfillment, satisfaction. Everything you ever do all day every day is to obtain something in that list. And if God is the only ultimate source of those things, what could you ever do with your time that would be more important than seeking fellowship with God?
Goal of the Christian life
Our goal in life should be to please God, and what pleases God is when we have fellowship with Him. According to Genesis 5:24 and Hebrews 11:5, Enoch was so pleasing to God that God just took him right up into heaven. And the thing that made Enoch that pleasing to God was the fact that Enoch walked with God. Walking with God is another way of describing close fellowship. The whole reason for the gospel – the whole reason for the New Covenant, is for us to draw near to God.

Hebrews 10:19-21 Therefore, brothers … since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near [to God] with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith

Paul summarized the whole Christian life in 1 Corinthians 1:9 as a calling into fellowship with Jesus Christ. The greatest commandment is to love God, and receiving love from God is better than life at its best. That relational interaction and mutual exchange of love in a personal, intentional way is described in the Bible in many different ways. Here it is called fellowship with God. In other passages it is called nearness to God, or seeking God, listening to God, eating and drinking God, seeing God, walking with God, knowing God, remaining in God - all of those metaphors describe some aspect of drawing near to God and having a positive experience of direct, personal interaction with Him. Fellowship with God is everything. It is right up there with grace and love.

2 Cor.13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Solution to all problems
It is the solution to all your problems – every one of them without exception. Are you sad? What is the solution to the problem of sorrow and grieving? In John 16:22 Jesus said that after His resurrection He would come to us and our grief would give way to a joy that cannot be taken away. So the solution to being sad is the nearness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Are you in need of comfort and tender compassion? God’s compassion and the tender love of Christ are expressed to us through fellowship with the Holy Spirit. 

Php.2:1,2 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded

 And that fellowship with the Holy Spirit gives you not just encouragement and compassion from God, but
all kinds of wonderful benefits. When you have fellowship with the Spirit, 1 Thes.1:6, Romans 14:17, and Galatians 5:22 promise the result will be joy. Romans 15:13 promises hope. Ephesians 1:18 and 1 Cor.2:14 point to enlightenment as something that comes from fellowship with the Spirit. Romans 8:6 and Galatians 5:22 promise peace from the Holy Spirit. In 1 John 3:24 and Ephesians 1:13 it is assurance of your salvation. In Acts 15:28 we see guidance resulting from fellowship with the Spirit. In 1 Cor.2:13 (and chapters 12-14) it is enablement for ministry. In Galatians 5:17 it is power to defeat the flesh. In Romans 8:26, 1 Cor.14:15, and Philippians 3:3 we see help in prayer and worship as a result of fellowship with the Spirit. Romans 8:15 identifies all the benefits of sonship as coming from fellowship with Him. And in 1 Cor.6:11 it is the entire sanctification process. 
 Do you have longings and desires that are going unfulfilled and unsatisfied? What is the solution to that? According to John 6:55, Psalm 36:7-8, Isaiah 58:11-14, Proverbs 9, Psalm 63:1,5, Isaiah 55:1-2, Jeremiah 2:13, Jeremiah 15:18, Psalm 42:1, Psalm 143:6, Psalm 1:3, Psalm 34:8, the solution to that kind of hunger and thirst in the soul is fellowship with God - experiencing God in such a way that His presence satisfies those appetites of the soul in a way very similar to how food and drink satisfy physical hunger and thirst. The pleasures of this world sometimes temporarily satisfy – other times they do not. But the experience of the presence of God in fellowship with Him always satisfies the soul – no exceptions.

Psalm 145:18-20 The LORD is near to all who call on him … He fulfills the desires of those who fear him

Are you struggling with some sin? The solution is fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Are you afraid or in danger? The solution is fellowship with God in which you experience Him as a refuge. No matter what need or desire you have, the solution is fellowship with God. That is what life is all about.
So when John comes along and says it is possible that your claim to have fellowship with God is false – that is pretty alarming. So how do make sure your fellowship with God is not bogus? We already found back in verse four that the beginning point is to have fellowship the Apostles. You have to be a partner with them in their mission, which means you have to be in agreement with their writings. (Their writings are what we call the New Testament.) If you are at odds with anything in the New Testament you are at odds with God. If you are not on the same page with John or James or Paul you are not on the same page with God. 
So you have to accept the Bible. But one of the hard and painful lessons the Jews learn in Romans three is the fact that merely possessing the truth is not enough. It is the essential starting point, but merely having the truth is not synonymous with having fellowship with God. John is going to go on to tell us what else is required. Once you accept the truth of the New Testament, then what?
In this section, starting in verse six, John gives us three pairs of “if” statements. And in each pair the first one describes the wrong way and the second one shows the right way. So he says, “If you do this – that is bad. If you do this – that is good.” And there are three of those pairs - a wrong way then the right way, a second wrong way then the right way, and a third wrong way and then the right way.
Last week we took a look at the first wrong way – the first of the six “if’s.” 

6 If we say, "We have fellowship with Him," and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 

That is the wrong way. Then he gives us the opposite of that – the right way. What is the opposite of falsely claiming fellowship with God and walking in darkness?

7 But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we…

 And at that point you expect him to say, “…we do indeed have fellowship with God.” Wouldn’t that make sense? “If we walk in the darkness we do not have fellowship with God, but if we walk in the light then we do have fellowship with God.” That is what you expect. But John pulls out a literary technique that he will use more than once in this book, and puts in a word we do not expect. He says, “If we walk in the darkness we do not have fellowship with God, but if we walk in the light we do have fellowship with…one another.” One another? I thought we were talking about fellowship with God? Where did “one another” come from?

Fellowship with one another
Inseparable from fellowship with God
This is a literary technique John likes to use to make an emphatic point. In place of the word you expect he places a different word. (I believe the technical term for this particular syntactical linguistic structure is “the ol’ switcheroo.” At least that’s what I call it.) So, what do you think the emphatic point is? The point is that fellowship with God and fellowship with His people are so closely related that they are interchangeable. 
Why no fellowship with people apart from fellowship with God?
The essence of fellowship – it must be mutual sharing in God
Another kind of switchero John pulls is also in verse six. He switches the metaphor about light. In verse five he says that God is light. In verse six he says God is in the light. How is it that God is light and He is in the light?
One of the most common mistakes people make in interpreting the Bible is the tendency to take a metaphor that is simply intended to communicate one specific idea in one specific context and universalize it across the whole Bible as an absolute statement. Let the metaphor be as fluid as the writer wants it to be.
 Think about what John is saying in this switcheroo. In verse five he says God is light in order to make the point that there could never be a union between God and someone walking in darkness. In verse six John is trying to teach us how to walk through life. And the point there is we need to be like God in the way we live.

If we walk in the light as God is in the light….

It does not say, “as God walks in the light” because God does not walk. Walking is progression through life, and God does not progress anywhere. So John drops the word “walk” when he talks about God. We need to walk in the light as God is in the light.
Verse five is a statement about His nature. God’s nature is such that He cannot be connected with darkness in any way. Verse six is a statement about the way God acts. “He is in the light” means God always behaves in a manner consistent with His nature. God’s behavior is always in perfect harmony with His nature. And we cannot have fellowship with one another unless our behavior is in harmony with God’s behavior.
 That gives us an important insight into what fellowship with another person is. Fellowship with another person is joining that person at God’s side. Remember, the word “fellowship” (koinonia) means “sharing.” Sharing in what? Sharing in God. You have fellowship with a person when you and that person share in the experience of God’s grace together.
Sometimes you hear people say, “Fellowship is not sitting around and chatting over coffee and doughnuts. True fellowship is when you get together one-on-one or in small groups and share your sorrows and joys with one another and encourage one another and help one another.” I agree with the first part of that statement. However I disagree with the second part. Getting together one-on-one or in small groups and sharing sorrows and joys and encouraging and helping one another is not fellowship any more than coffee and doughnuts are. In fact, by itself it is not even particularly Christian. Getting together one-on-one or in small groups and sharing sorrows and joys and encouraging and helping one another is something that takes place every single night in bars all over Denver. It happens at the Elks club, it happens at secular AA meetings, it happens at Starbucks, and breaks rooms at work and all kinds of places. 

The unity of fellowship with God and fellowship with the Church
We have seen in past studies that fellowship with God and fellowship with His people are tied inseparably together. If you think you have fellowship with God but you are out of fellowship with His people you are dreaming. And if you think you automatically have fellowship with God just because you are highly involved in church you are dreaming. Where there is not both there is neither. And the reason for that is that fellowship with people is nothing more that a sharing together in God. That is why John uses them interchangeably. The only time you and I are actually having fellowship with each other is when we are sharing together in the experience of God’s grace. At the end of 2 Corinthians 6 we have the command that we not be yoked together with unbelievers. We are never to put ourselves into a relationship with an unbeliever where we are so tightly bound to that person that he or she has a significant effect on the direction of our life. Why? Why not be yoked together with an unbeliever? Why are we not permitted to marry an unbeliever or get into too close a friendship or business partnership with a non-Christian? 

2 Corinthians 6:14 - 7:1 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?

Now, up to that point it sounds like he might just be saying that you are righteousness and light, and they are lawlessness and darkness, and that is why you are incompatible. But look at the next verse:

15 What agreement does Christ have with Belial?

Obviously Christ and Satan have nothing to do with each other. But what does that have to do with you and a non-Christian friend? If you bind yourself together with some unbeliever, does that mean Jesus is somehow forced to have close communion with the Devil? I don’t think so. There are a lot of Christians who have disobeyed this and married unbelievers, and I do not think in all those cases Jesus Christ is having intimate fellowship with Satan. He is pure light and in Him there is no darkness at all.
So then what does it mean? What does the opposition between Christ and Satan have to do with the fact that I am not to be joined together with an unbeliever? The reason that it is significant is because the heart of fellowship – the core of sharing together in love with another person, is sharing together in the great treasure and great joys of your life. And if the great treasure of your life is Christ, and the great treasure of someone else’s life is Satan, then you cannot share in fellowship with that person.

16 And what agreement does God's sanctuary have with idols? For we are the sanctuary of the living God, as God said: I will dwell among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. 17 Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord; do not touch any unclean thing, and I will welcome you. 18 I will be a Father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to Me, says the Lord Almighty. 

True fellowship is when you share in the experience of the presence of God with someone. It is when you share with someone the experience of His nearness and His walking among you. And it is impossible to do that with an unbeliever.

Galatians 2:9 When James, Cephas, and John … acknowledged the grace that had been given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to me and Barnabas

Fellowship with Paul happened only when they acknowledged the grace that had been given to Paul. There could be no fellowship prior to that because fellowship is sharing in the grace of God together. If you are participating in the life of God, and I am participating in the life of God, then you and I can have fellowship together.
So where do the coffee and doughnuts come in? Or going to lunch together, or spending an evening together? Is that fellowship or not? It depends. If your time together is a sharing in the life of God – joint participation in fellowship with God, then you are having true fellowship with each other.
Coffee and doughnuts actually play a fairly important role. When we eat and drink together, or do some activity together, or drive somewhere together, that gives us an occasion to be with each other long enough for spiritual things to come up in conversation. Suppose Tracy and I go to some friends’ house and spend a whole evening together playing cards or watching a Denver Nuggets’ game, or whatever. At some point we might get into a conversation about one of the attributes of God that we have been meditating on in our devotions. Then it might be small talk for a while, and some laughter and joking around. Then some conversation about our lives – expressing love to one another through being interested in each other’s lives (but not the same kind of love the world has for their friends. I am talking about love that grows out of love for God – liking your friends because of God’s love for them, and offering gestures of love that are consciously intended as expressions of worship to God.) Then later in the evening we might get to talking about some spiritual struggle one of us is having. And the others might offer strengthening or healing words from Scripture, or pray for the ones struggling right on the spot- helping that one find strength in God like Jonathan did for David in 1 Samuel 23:16. That is fellowship – sharing in the grace of God together.
Another night we might go over there and the entire time do nothing but talk about temporal things without paying any attention to God at all. We might have a great time that night with Christian friends, but it is not fellowship. It is just fun friendship. John Piper: “I am biased toward … ministry-oriented friendship as opposed to tea sipping at the kitchen table friendship. To which you should probably respond, “What’s wrong with sipping tea at the kitchen table?” … Nothing – unless… three weeks go by – you’re still sipping; four weeks go by, and you’re still sipping, and four months go by, and you’re still sipping and talking about the kids. And four years go by and you’re still sipping. Then you don’t have a Christ exalting relationship; you have a tea exalting relationship.” Every Christian friendship (marriage, sibling relationship, business partnership, etc.) should be all about Christ, and making Him look more marvelous in the eyes of the other person.
If you are not currently working on building relationships with people in the church – outside of your own family, that is just flat out disobedience to God’s Word. That is rebellion against God. We have talked enough about the one another commands in this church that there should not be any surprise there. But when you work on those friendships – you have someone over for dinner, meet someone for lunch, chat on the phone, or just talk share prayer requests and pray for each other in your small group - let’s make an effort to move more and more toward making our time together real fellowship.
Try to have such wonderful times with God in your devotions that when you see your friends again you have something besides trivia to talk about. You can talk about the marvelous experiences with Christ you have had since the last time you were with this friend. You can talk about the things He has taught you, and the new insights into the wonders of one of His attributes.
I am trying to learn in my life not to squander my time with the saints. Just think of it – a saint. A saint! If you are going to go have lunch with a Christian you are going to be sitting across the table from one of the holy ones of God! One of the elect from before the foundation of the world! The greatest possible joy in this life comes from fellowship with God. And there are a lot of different ways to have fellowship with God. The greatest of all is loving a saint as an intentional, conscious expression of your love for God. That means there is more potential for happiness when you go to meet with a saint than there is with any other activity in this world, but only if you make your time together a time of sharing in the grace of God.
What do you suppose the marriages would be like if we stopped worrying about getting our spouse to treat us better, and starting seeing them as walking opportunities to share the deepest spiritual fellowship? When we get together with Christian friends and have coffee or a meal, let’s not behave as though the most glorious, marvelous, beautiful, spectacular, awesome being in existence isn’t right there in the room with us. Let’s behave as we would if we really believed such a being is present there with us at the table. Let’s point to Him and talk about Him and talk to Him and enjoy Him together.
And if coffee and doughnuts, or a meal, or going shopping together, or going for a walk, or watching a ball game, or playing cards, or whatever activity helps you spend enough time together for spiritual things to come up in conversation, then let’s be committed to doing those things for that purpose. And when we carry out our ministries in the church, let all our ministry to one another flow out of our experiences with God. Let all our teaching and service and love and encouragement and giving and every other ministry spring out of our experiences of His presence. That is what will keep our ministry from becoming dry or burdensome or ineffective or phony. 
Why no fellowship with God apart from fellowship with people?
Because God loves people
Okay, so now we understand why you cannot have fellowship with people unless you have fellowship with God. But what about the other side of the coin? Why can’t you just have fellowship with God without having fellowship with people? It makes sense that we cannot have fellowship with one another if we do not have fellowship with Him, because fellowship with one another is a mutual sharing with Him. That makes good sense. But why is my fellowship with God dependent upon my nearness to you? Why can’t it just be me and God – one-on-one? Why can’t it be that the greatest experience of love for God is just getting lost in the ecstasy of being alone with Him in His presence? Why can’t the greatest joy come from that, instead of being so dependant upon fellowship with other people?
The answer to that is very simple – God loves people. We have talked about this many times – you cannot be my best friend if you hate my wife. We cannot be close if you care nothing for the love of my life. I cannot be close to God if I am at odds with the very people He so dearly loves.
God is so concerned to express love to His people that He sacrificed His own Son. He put in place the entire plan of redemption. He sent His Holy Spirit to live within them. He gave them the Scriptures. He revealed Himself to them. He forgives their sins and draws near to them. He cherishes them and guides them and teaches them and nurtures them and feeds them and heals them and supplies His very life to them and is preparing a place for them in heaven. That is what His love for them is like. And so if I am not on board with all of that - if those things are not my main priorities and main desires and main loves, how can I claim to be close to the heart of God? If I care little about that which He cares most about, how can I claim to be in fellowship with Him? If I am going to share with Him in what He is doing and feeling then I am going to be consumed with love for the people He loves.

What a marvelous thing that God requires people to love me in order to glorify Him!
How important is it to God that you love His people? Here is how important it is to Him: It is so important to Him that He has actually tied His own glory to loving His people – so you cannot glorify God without loving His people!

Romans 15:5 Now may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you agreement with one another, according to Christ Jesus, 6 so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with a united mind and voice. 7 Therefore accept one another, just as Christ also accepted you, to the glory of God.

You cannot glorify God without loving His Church. The more you care about the glory of God the more you will pursue closeness with His people in the Church, because it is our unified hearts and acceptance of one another that glorifies God.
Think of what a wonderful truth that is. There are two important implications. One is that it is really, really important that you love us, right? If you want to glorify God you cannot do it without loving us, so the first implication is that you have a huge, huge responsibility to love all of us deeply and profoundly.
The other implication is that if you are a saint, then the rest of us cannot glorify God without loving you. Think about that. God loves you so much, and He wants all of us to love you so much, that He made it so that we cannot get close to Him without getting close to you! Just think about the benefits that come to you because of that. The reason we have cars and microwave ovens and cell phones is because people were trying to make money. But the countless spiritual resources we have have often come from people who did not profit financially at all – they just did it out of love for God’s people. There are brilliant Christian authors who have sacrificed greatly in order to produce books that will help you know God better. In many cases they have had to struggle financially in order to provide these gifts to the Church. But they do it happily and eagerly and joyfully because they love you. They have not even met you, but they love God so much that they deeply love His Church and use all their gifts and abilities and resources to serve the Church. So as a result of God tying nearness to Him with love for His people, you can go to the Christian bookstore and pick up something that will profit you eternally. 
There are other people who are doing that same thing with music. They are writing the worship songs that help lift your soul right into the heavenlies. Others are taking all their free time and instead of using it to go on vacations or do some recreation, they are going through the painstaking, arduous labor of developing Bible software so that you can have greater understanding of God’s Word. Others are working long hours and going through painful ordeals in order to earn large sums of money that they can give to the Church, so that you can sit in a heated or air conditioned building, or listen to preaching on the radio, or have a pastor who can spend his full time in study without having to work a second job. We have microwaves because people wanted to make a profit. But we have so many spiritual resources because so many of the saints have loved you, the Church.
That is why the blood that was spilled over the past 2000 years in order to get the gospel from Israel where it started to the people who finally brought it to you - that blood was willingly offered as countless missionaries, pastors, Bible translators, reformers, and ordinary Christians gave their lives for the furtherance of the Kingdom. That is why there was someone who presented the gospel to you, resulting in you being saved instead of going to hell forever. It happened because God tied nearness to Him with love for you. Nearness to Him is the most desirable thing in the world, and His people cannot have it without loving you. God made it so people could have great joy in Him if they love you. That is why people love you. And if that hurts your self esteem, fine, let it hurt your self esteem. But let it also generate great delight and thanksgiving in your heart to the One who turns the saints’ desire to be near Him into the saints’ love for you. What a gracious God we serve!
Watch out for fellowship-killing pride
So let’s not allow our pride to contaminate the beauty of what God has done. When it comes to fellowship there are two kinds of prideful people. One says, “I don’t have any close friendships and I don’t need any and I don’t want any thank you. I’m just fine coming and observing and going home with my family.” The people who do not pour themselves out in love because they do not think they need friends care only about themselves. Even if it were true that you do not need friends (which it is not) what about your responsibility to provide friendship? It is prideful to imagine that you have no need for close friendships and never will, and it is prideful to think that the need other people have for your friendship does not matter if you do not feel the need. So that is one kind of pride.
On the other end of the spectrum there are those who desperately desire close friendships. And they say, “I want to have close relationships, and you owe me one, and it is your fault when my needs are not met.” People like that are generally more consumed with a desire to receive love than to give love. They are always worried about whether they are being welcomed into the church properly, and if people are being nice to them, and showing love to them. They never seem to concern themselves with whether they are welcoming others and loving others.
If your greatest desire is to give love, it is not hard to find opportunities. You can pray for people and encourage people and give to people and serve people and be there for people when they have needs. And if you do that without worrying about how they respond to you – you just enjoy loving them because of how much God loves them – you will be full of joy. And eventually some of them will respond in love toward you in delightful ways – even if they are not the individuals you had in mind, or the exact responses you had in mind.
So it is pride that drives the people who say, “I don’t need friendships.” And it is pride that drives the people who desperately crave friendship but seem to think it is more blessed to receive than to give. 

Conclusion: walk in the light!
Last week we talked about the fact that you cannot have fellowship with God unless you walk in the light. And walking in the light does not mean sinlessness – it means repentance. Those who walk in the light are people who eagerly embrace the teaching of the Apostles (the NT), live in a way that aligns with the truth, who confess their sin rather than cover it up or justify it or excuse it. Only people like that can have fellowship with God at all. And the degree to which you can enjoy fellowship with God is dependent upon the degree to which you are living that way. The more steps you take into the darkness the less you will be able to experience fellowship with God. And the longer you remain in the darkness when you do step into it, the less you will be able to experience fellowship with God. But the more you walk in the light, the more you will experience fellowship with God. 
There are some Christians who have hardly any experience of fellowship with God, because they so frequently step into the darkness. They step out of the light and buy into some lie of Satan, and they remain in the darkness for a long time, then they repent. And they are like Micah – they are sitting in the darkness and are banished from nearness to God for a time of chastisement. But instead of persisting in seeking after God during that time, before that time is even over they step right back into the darkness. And they keep that up so frequently that it is rare that they ever have any real profound experiences of the nearness of God. And that is why they cannot find very much joy in God through loving His people. They might spend a lot of time at church, but they never really have much actual fellowship with the saints, because they spend so much time in the darkness. 
The more you linger in the darkness with regard to the truth about your sin - pretending to be something you are not, failing to confess your sins to brothers and sisters in Christ, the more you break fellowship with us and cut yourself off from nearness to God.
If we confess all our sins to God, but then we turn around and live a complete lie in front of everyone else, that is not walking in the light as He is in the light. That is just hypocrisy. You cannot be in the light with respect to God and in the darkness with respect to God’s people.
And so I want to close by pleading with you – do everything you can possibly do to gain more and more victory over the sins in your life. It is so important. Those sins keep you from the fullness of joy in God that would greatly glorify Him and completely satisfy your soul. Those sins ruin your fellowship with us and forfeit nearness to God. They drain the joy out of reading Scripture, they turn prayer into a drudgery and chore, they take what God intends as a joyful feast, and turn it into a dry, boring, burdensome drain. Showing love to people becomes an annoying hardship rather than the source of the greatest kind of joy in God. God never intended for you to live that way.
Let the carrot of nearness to God and deep joy in sharing in His grace with His people be so tantalizing to you that you will be willing to do absolutely anything to gain victory over your sin. If it means coming clean and confessing the real truth and exposing yourself as a much dirtier or weaker or more foolish person than everyone thinks you are – so be it! It is worth it! If it means humbling yourself and seeking help – asking for biblical counsel from someone – do it! There is no reason to try to make people think you have all the answers already – no one has all the answers already. There is so much joy to be had in fellowship with God and His people – inexpressible and glorious joy. No sin is worth forfeiting that. No charade is worth maintaining that costs you that. 
God is light. And He has called you into His marvelous light. Stop clinging to the darkness and run to Him, no matter what the cost. If it costs you your prestige among your friends, if it costs you your self-esteem, if it costs you your marriage or some other relationship, it is worth it. The Kingdom of heaven is like a man who found a treasure in a field and in his joy he sold everything he owned to get it. Let joy compel you to give up what you need to give up. He has called us to walk in the light with Him. Let’s walk in the light.

Benediction: 2 Cor.13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Sin in the Christian Life Part 3 Confession 1:8-9

Summary: The command to confess in order to be forgiven seems to conflict with justification. The only alternative to confession is denial – claiming to be free of guilt which is self deception and not being defined by truth about God and self; calling God a liar, and being separated from God’s Word (the purpose of which is joy and peace). Confession is the opposite – admitting to sin and sins and the sinful affections behind self-deception and having the truth in you. It must be heartfelt and public. Give glory to God!

Introduction: The Problem of conditional forgiveness
Who is supposed to confess?
The Alternative to Confession
Denial of sin
The claim to be free from sins
The meaning of confession
The only alternative to denial
The meaning of confession
Must be heartfelt
Confess to Whom?
Conclusion: Give glory to God!

8 If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, "We have not sinned," we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

Introduction: The Problem of conditional forgiveness
We come this morning to a difficult and very controversial passage. The difficulty is mainly verse nine, which makes forgiveness conditioned upon ongoing confession. He says if we confess God will forgive, which implies He will not forgive if we fail to confess. How do you reconcile that with justification? From the moment you become a Christian, all your sin is credited to Jesus’ account and all Jesus’ perfect righteousness is credited to your account. So if you are a believer, God does not count your sins against you. And so if that is the case – if it is really true that God counts your faith as though it were righteousness, and there is zero condemnation for those who are in Christ, then why does John say that forgiveness is dependent upon our confessing our sins?
What happens if you don’t confess a particular sin? Do you lose your salvation? Or what happens if you never confess any sin at all? Is it possible to be saved and not confess your sin to God on a regular basis? Is this passage talking about a one-time act right at conversion only, or is it an ongoing, continuous thing we are to do?
And what exactly happened at the cross? Was our sin forgiven when Jesus paid the price on the cross, or was it just made forgivable? What exactly is forgiveness, and when does it take place?

Who is supposed to confess?
Before we can begin answering those questions or examining anything else in this text the first order of business is to determine exactly who this passage is addressed to. John gives six statements that begin with “If we.” So the first thing we need to do is make sure we understand who “we” is.
It is amazing (and distressing) to me how fast and loose people are willing to play with the “we’s” in Scripture. Very often a Bible writer will say “we,” and if what follows does not fit someone’s theology they say, “This is talking about non-Christians, so it does not apply to us.” Many of you are probably familiar with Bob George – he is a very popular personality on Christian radio. Bob George is a counselor who definitely has a heart for helping people, and no doubt he is a really great guy in a lot of ways. However he has some very divergent views on theology. He teaches that it is wrong for a Christian to confess his sin to God. He says it is a denial of what took place on the cross. All your sin is already forgiven, and therefore to confess your sins in order for them to be forgiven cannot possibly be a good thing. o when he gets to 1 John 1:9 he just says, “Oh, that’s written to non-Christians, not Christians.”
Let me ask you something – do we still believe that every word of Scripture is breathed out of the mouth of God? Are there any words in the Bible that are so small that we are at liberty to just change them to mean something other than what they originally meant? So are we all agreed that when John wrote the word “we” he really did mean “we” and not “they”? Are we all agreed that “we” is the right word here? The reason I make such a point about that is because if we take this “we” seriously, that answers the question of who 1 John 1 is talking about. It is talking about some group that John is a part of. It is talking about Christians. 
Some people have tried to explain this away by calling it a “pastor’s we.” Sometimes pastors will say “we” when they really mean “you” in order to avoid being offensive. For example, a pastor might say, “We must stop all this gossiping that is taking place in this church,” when in reality he knows he is not part of the gossip chain. He does not mean “we” at all – he means “you.” But he does not want to sound too harsh, so he softens it by saying “we.” 
There are four reasons why I think this “we” should not be taken as a pastor’s “we.” First, it is not a valid assumption that just because in our day pastors sometimes say “we” when they mean “you” that the Bible writers did the same thing. There is no passage anywhere in Scripture that you can point to and say, “There is a clear example of a “pastor’s we” that most scholars would agree is a “pastor’s we.”
Second, the reason for a “pastor’s we” is to soften what is being said so as to not offend anybody. Do you really think that is what John is doing? Anyone who thinks John is going out of his way to avoid offending the false teachers just has not read the book of First John. He calls them antichrists. When he confronts their lack of love he does so by calling them murderers. He calls them liars. He accuses them of not knowing God, not having fellowship with God, not remaining in God, not being born of God, and calling God a liar.
Then he says, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, no offense, but in addition to all that, you are of the Devil, you carry out wicked work, you are walking in darkness, your sins are not forgiven, you are not pure, you do not have eternal life, and you remain in death.” I don’t think John is worried about hurting their feelings.
A third reason why this cannot be a “we” that somehow refers only to non-Christians and not Christians is because of the context.

2:1 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father-- Jesus Christ the righteous One. 2 He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. 

That has to be referring to believers. The “we” there refers to John’s spiritual children and they are distinguished from the rest of the world.
And a fourth reason it can’t be a “pastor’s we” is because it would be extremely confusing to say “we” in a context where John’s whole purpose is to differentiate between those who are truly saved and those who are not. Throughout the book John is forcing the readers to decide – are they going to follow John and the Apostles or are they going to follow the false teachers? A major purpose, if not the main purpose of the entire book is to make that distinction, so there is no way John is going to confuse the issue by saying “we” when he is referring to the false teachers. John is laboring to try to help the readers understand which people are included in the people of God and which are excluded. And it is impossible for me to believe that right in the middle of all that he would say “we” when referring to the group that are excluded from the people of God. That would play right into the hands of the false teachers.
Are there some theological tensions that we need to resolve in this chapter? Yes. We need to figure out how what John is saying can be reconciled with what Paul teaches about justification. But writing off this chapter as applying to non-Christians is just simply not an option. All Scripture is God-breathed, and the Holy Spirit did not hiccup when He moved John to write “we” and not “they.” 
And by the way, all the major commentaries on 1 John (I read about 15 of them in my preparation) agree that this has to be speaking about believers. However, they also all agree that in these “if” statements John is attacking the claims of the false teachers. That is how he introduces their false claims. So that brings up the question of why John did not say, “When they claim to have fellowship with God and yet walk in the darkness…” and “When they claim they have no sin…” etc. The fact that John says “If we” rather than “When they” makes these dramatic and gripping warnings. We, the ones who are not them – even we, if we walk in the darkness, we are not fellowshippers with God. The point is there is a danger that John’s readers will follow the false teachers. John is not so much concerned here to tell us that the false teachers are lost. His purpose here is to warn us what will happen if we follow them. If John or any other Christian, including you, follows their pattern of walking in the darkness then you have no fellowship with God. And if you follow their pattern about claiming to be without sin, you are a liar and you are calling God a liar. These are incredibly sobering warnings. We need to resist the temptation to soften them or divert them in any way. They are directed to believers and they are warning against the most drastic consequence – no fellowship with God. And if we cannot find a way to fit that into our theology we need to adjust our theology, not the text of 1 John 1.

The Alternative to Confession 
So, should we as Christians be confessing our sins? The question I would like to ask Bob George is this – if we are not to confess our sins, what is the alternative? Even if there were nothing at all anywhere in the Bible telling us to confess our sins to God – if each of the passages like 1 John 1:9 that talk about confession were just white space in the Bible, then what? If it is wrong for me to confess my sin to God, what should I do when I sin - lie about it to God? Should I claim that it was not really sin or that it was not really all that bad? Should I be dishonest or speak about the sin in some way other than the way Scripture speaks about sin? Or how about this – should I just not bring it up at all when I talk to God in prayer? Are some things out of bounds to discuss with God? Is it possible that I am not allowed to talk to God about something that is the most dangerous, destructive, threat in my life? Of course not!
If you want to know what the alternative to confession of sin is, just look at what John says in verses eight and ten.

8 If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, "We have not sinned," we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

The only alternative to confession of sin is denial of sin, and that is a blasphemous lie. Failing to face the truth about your sin is part of what it means to walk in the darkness. How can I claim to be walking in the light if I keep my sin in the dark?
Denial of sin
Remember, in each of these pairs of “if’s” John first describes the wrong way, then the right way. “If we walk in the darkness…” (that’s the wrong way); “If we walk in the light…” (that’s the opposite – the right way) “If we say we have no sin…” (that’s the wrong way); “If we confess our sins…” (that’s the opposite – the right way)
The opposite of confession of sin is denial of sin, and there are two ways the readers were being tempted to do that.

Claiming to be free of guilt

8 If we say, "We have no sin,"

The phrase “to have sin” appears four times in John’s gospel, and each time it means to be guilty of sin.

John 9:41 "If you were blind," Jesus told them, "you wouldn't have sin. But now that you say, 'We see'-- your sin remains.

Jesus’ point is, “The fact that you are sinning against knowledge means you are guilty.”

John 15:22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin.

So there “having sin” is the opposite of having an excuse. Not having an excuse means you are guilty.

John 15:24 If I had not done the works among them that no one else has done, they would not have sin. Now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father.

And in John.19:11 when Jesus stated that Judas had greater guilt than Pilate, He used this same phrase – to have sin. So in John’s lingo, having sin refers to the guilt of sin.
The false teachers probably were not claiming to be perfect. Our folly and evil are so absolutely obvious and undeniable that not many people are so detached from reality that they would claim perfection. However, the guilt of sin is a hard thing to live with, and people work really hard to come up with some kind of rationale that frees them from that guilt. “I’m not as bad as…..”; “I made up for my sin by doing extra good things.”; “I made up for my sin through being committed to religion”; My sins really are not all that bad”; “God is the type to overlook the kinds of sins I commit”; “I am getting better”; “My sins are not really my fault. I do them because of my upbringing/health/whatever”; “I can’t do anything about it anyway so I might as well not think about it”; “To err is human”; “It’s the way God made me. I can’t overcome human nature, so it’s not my fault”; “I make mistakes, but they aren’t really sins.” There is no end to the rationalizations people come up with to convince themselves that their guilt problem is taken care of. They do not need cleansing, they do not need to seek any special forgiveness, their sin situation does not need any attention. And when we do that, John says… we are deceiving ourselves. 

Self-deception 
Self-deception is a fascinating thing. When you deceive yourself, you are both the one doing the deceiving and the one being deceived. Inside your heart there are some good parts of you and some bad parts. And the bad part argues with the good part. That is why throughout Scripture (as well as in our own experience) we see that there is a constant dialogue that goes on between you and … you. The Psalmists talk to their own soul.

Psalm 42:5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? … Put your hope in God,

Psalm 57:8 Awake, my soul!

Psalm 62:5 Find rest, O my soul, in God alone

Psalm 103:2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits

(In that passage he keeps talking to his soul for five verses.)

Romans 7:15-25 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 

There’s “I” and then there’s “I” and they are going in opposite directions. 
As a Christian there is a bad part of you that desires sin and a good part of you that hates sin. And that part of you that loves sin is always trying to deceive that part of you that loves God. And numerous times Scripture commands us, “Do not be deceived.” Which means, being deceived is a choice. When the bad part of you is able to trick the good part of you, it is always because the good part of you was willing to be tricked. (Which means even the good part of you has plenty of bad in it.)
It is scary to read about self-deception in Scripture, because if it is possible to be self-deceived, how could you possibly know that you are self-deceived? If you knew that your beliefs were false, then you would not be deceived. So it would seem like self-deception would be impossible to recover from. I have had people tell me that I was self-deceived, and the only way out for me would be to believe the things they were telling me even though I was fully convinced in my heart that those things were not true. Is that the solution to self-deception? No! There is never, ever a time when you should accept something that you do not think is true just because some fallible person told you to accept it. Unless you can see something for yourself in Scripture do not ever believe it.
Self-deception is not something that is impossible to recover from. Self-deception happens when you want to believe some false thing more than you want to know the truth. So the solution is to have a willingness to face the truth. When you have that God will show you the way out of your self-deception.

John 7:17 If anyone desires to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

Deception comes when there is unwillingness to accept the truth. But once you become willing to accept the truth – whatever it may be, then God will enable you to see it. God will never leave you in a condition in which it is impossible for you to follow Him.
Nevertheless, there is a danger of self-deception. It is possible to deceive yourself into thinking you are not guilty before God when you sin. And if that happens, you are culpable before God, because the reason the bad part of you was able to convince the good part of you was because deep down it is what you really wanted to believe. 

Truth not in us
Then John adds one of those remarks that at first sounds like a redundancy. 

8 …and the truth is not in us.

Not only are you deceived, but the truth is not in you. Is that just two ways of saying exactly the same thing, or is John adding something here? I think he is adding something.
For John, the word “truth” and the word “in” are both very significant. When John talks about truth he means more than just accurate information. For John truth is something that touches on every part of life. It has to do not only with your thoughts, but also your feelings, your beliefs, your speech, and your actions. It includes not only believing the right things, but also feeling and wanting and doing the right things. It includes not only truth about God but also truth about yourself, not only sound doctrine, but also genuineness, transparency and integrity in the way you live. It is walking in the light.
And the word “in” is also significant. When John talks about being in some abstract thing – like being in the light or in God or in the truth, that points to the closest possible relationship with that thing, such that it is a dominant, controlling, defining factor of your life. So if the truth is not in you, then the light of Christ (sound doctrine, integrity, genuineness, right feelings, right beliefs, right thoughts, right actions,) are not dominant, controlling, defining factors in your life.
The claim to be free from sins

10 If we say, "We have not sinned" 

It also could be translated, “If we say we have not been sinning…” In verse eight John talks about sin in general, and here in verse ten it is in the plural – talking about individual sins. In verse eight it is in the present tense – pointing to an ongoing thing; here it is the perfect tense – pointing to past actions. If someone wants to try to get around verse eight by saying, “I used to sin, but I don’t anymore,” or “I still sometimes slip up and commit a sin, but the sin nature within me is eradicated,” or whatever claim they want to make – nothing can get past John’s language here. No matter how you slice it, there is no sense in which you can ever deny the reality of the problem of sin in your life.
When it came to sin, the false teachers of John’s day were evidently teaching something similar to what Christian Science teaches. Christians Science is a false religion that teaches that you conquer sin by denying that it exists. Some of the early Gnostic teaching of the time held that the only thing that really mattered was your spirit, not your body, so nothing your body does can really affect your spirit. So once you have reached enlightenment, none of the things your body does has any negative effect on your spirit. But John says any denial of the reality of your own sin and guilt is not only self-deception, and a separation from the truth and light, but in verse ten he even takes it a step further.

Calling God a liar

10 …we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

To make God a liar means to call Him a liar. For one thing God has said many times in His Word that we are all sinners. But beyond that – everything God has ever said to us He has said from the perspective of a Judge and a Redeemer speaking to sinful, guilty creatures. Therefore if we are not sinful, guilty creatures, then the entire Bible is a lie. If that is the case, then God lied in Genesis when He described the fall. He lied in Exodus when He gave the picture of salvation from sin. He lied in Leviticus through Deuteronomy when He gave the sacrificial system as a picture of atonement for sin. The prophets all lied, the Psalms are all lies, Jesus’ entire ministry was a lie, the Apostles wrote nothing but lies, and the biggest lie of all was the cross. When we rationalize our sin so that we make our guilt disappear, we commit blasphemy of galactic proportions. 

His Word is not in us

So obviously if you downplay or deny your sin, His word is not in you.

10 …we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

The entire Bible, front to back, deals with us as sinners and God as Savior and Redeemer. So if you approach the Bible as a non-sinner you will understand nothing in the Bible. And you can never know God because He is a God who deals only with sinners. The promises of Scripture are for repentant sinners. The hope of God’s Word is for repentant sinners. If you don’t have a sin problem there is nothing in there for you. God has nothing to offer you, because He is the Great Physician, and those who are not sick have no need for a doctor. Jesus did not come into this world to seek and save those who are just fine – He only came to seek and save the lost.
Now, most of us are not tempted to deny our guilt altogether. But we are tempted to do it in certain, select circumstances. That bad part of us that wants to argue that we are not really guilty never shuts up. It has a motor mouth that goes constantly. And we are forever having to deal with the temptation to rationalize individual sins. “That cutting remark to my husband wasn’t really sin. I wasn’t being disrespectful – I am just tired.” “My lack of romantic interest in my wife isn’t really sin – it’s her fault for letting herself go in her appearance.” “I’m not really angry – just frustrated.” “I’m not looking with lust – just enjoying God’s creation.” “The time and money I spend on worthless things isn’t a sign of any wrong affections – I’m not as bad as some people.” “My worry isn’t really sin – it is legitimate concern.” “Yelling at my kids in anger isn’t sin – they need to learn discipline.” “That conversation was not really gossip, because, well, it just wasn’t gossip.” (Sometimes the argument doesn’t even have to be all that persuasive for us to fall for it. When you want to believe something, you are easily convinced.)
And the more you do that sort of thing, the less God’s Word is in you. The more you rationalize sin the less God’s Word functions as the dominant, controlling, defining factor of your life. Which means, when we are not honest about our sin we cut ourselves off from communication from God and the benefits of His Word.

The purpose of God’s Word - joy
Do you know why God gave us His Word?

Isaiah 55:10-13 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

What is that purpose, God? What is this amazing, wonderful thing that is absolutely certain to take place once Your Word has gone out? What is the intended effect that is guaranteed? 

12 You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace

Peace and joy – that is the intended purpose and guaranteed outcome of the receiving of God’s Word. So when we rationalize sin and guilt, we distance ourselves from God’s Word and we cut ourselves off from the joy and peace that His Word is intended to bring us.

The meaning of confession
The only alternative to denial
So denial of sin and guilt is the wrong way. Let’s take a look at the right way.

9 If we confess our sins

That is the right way. There should not be any controversy about this. There are only two options when it comes to your sin – deny it or confess it. Lie about it or be truthful about it. Now, to be fair to Bob George, I do not think he is advocating that we deny the reality of our sin. But if he thought it through and read the chapter carefully, he would see that that is the only other alternative. If sin is a reality in our lives, then the only two options are to deny it or confess it. You can live as though it were not a reality – that is walking in the darkness. Or you can live as though everything God said about your sin is true – that is walking in the light. If that is all it said there probably would not be much controversy. The problem comes with the next phrase.

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins 
The meaning of confession
What does John mean by confession? That is not hard to figure out in a general way. Verse nine is the opposite of verses eight and ten, right? If the wrong way is denying sin, the kind of confession John is calling us to must be the opposite of that.

1)	Admitting to sin in your life in general
2)	Admitting to specific sins
3)	Admitting to the sinful desires behind self-deception 

It means dealing with the problem of self-deception, and wanting to believe that you are not guilty. (Those times when you ask yourself, “Why do I fall for such stupid rationalizations?” The reason is not because you are dumb. It is because there is something in you that wants to fall for them. Part of confession is facing up to that.)
4)	Having the truth in you
Confession is the opposite of not having the truth in you, so true confession means having the truth in you. Integrity, genuineness, right feelings, right beliefs, right thoughts, right actions, and the truth of Scripture: all that is embraced by your heart, and that is the dominant, controlling, defining factor of your life.
Must be heartfelt
In other words, accept the truth about God and the truth about yourself. If you go through the motions of mouthing the words “Yes, I sinned. I did wrong,” but they are all just words – that is not true confession. Confession has to be a true expression of your whole heart. Luther had a great statement about that – he said God does not forgive imaginary sin, nor does He save imaginary sinners. When you confess your guilt before God, if you are just mouthing words about your guilt but there is no sorrow or brokenness or real, genuine belief that you are actually guilty, the truth is not in you and you are calling God a liar. Your confession has to touch your whole being – including your affections.

Confess to Whom?
We need to consider the question of to whom we are to confess our sins. At first that may seem obvious – confess them to God. But it is not quite that simple. 
In the immediate context, as well as throughout the book, the fellowship with God that we have is inseparably tied to fellowship with one another. I think we would all know what John would say if you asked him, “Is it possible to walk in the light with God and in the darkness with each other?” No, it is not. We do not confess every detail of every sin to everyone in the Church, but there is definitely a public aspect to confession.
John always uses the word “confess” to refer to a public statement – never a mere inner attitude. He uses the term fairly frequently, and every time it refers to declaring something publicly. In fact, in John 12 confessing is the opposite of keeping something inside.

John 12:42 Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue

They believed on the inside but would not confess it. So there “confess” means to make it public. Public confession of sin was a part of Jewish worship and had been for centuries. God commanded it on the Day of Atonement, when Aaron was to confess the sins of the people. And even in the course of daily life:

Leviticus 5:5 "'When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what way he has sinned

Every time confession of sin is mentioned in the NT it is always confession before people: in Mt.3:6 and Mk.1:15, where the people confessed their sins before being baptized by John, in James 5:16 where confession is also linked to forgiveness of sin, and in Acts 19:18 where the people burned their pagan paraphernalia and confessed their sins. In each case the confession was always public. And so it is very unlikely, in my estimation, that the readers of 1 John would read this and assume John was talking about mere private confession in your heart to God only.
And besides all that, doesn’t simple logic require that we confess our sins to one another if we are going to have genuine fellowship with one another? We should pray for one another in the church, right? So if we are going to pray for you, shouldn’t we be praying for the greatest concerns in your life? If there is some disaster or calamity in your life, shouldn’t we pray for you regarding that? And isn’t it true that the greatest disaster and worst calamity in your life is your sin? And of all the sins you commit, isn’t it usually the ones that you are most reluctant to confess that are the biggest calamity in your life? What kind of farce do we turn the fellowship into when one of us is struggling with a huge calamity and we are praying about the relatively trivial things in his life? If you cannot get a grip on your temper, and you are abusing your wife or children, and we are sitting around praying for you to get over your cold – that is ridiculous. If you are in bondage to alcohol or some drug or sexual sin or some other thing that is destroying your life, and that is the main threat to your walk with the Lord, and you have us praying for some ancillary thing - that is evidence that either you are not really serious about overcoming that sin, or you do not believe what God has said about the effectiveness of the prayers of the saints. Any time avoidance of embarrassment is more important to you than holiness you know you are not really repentant. 

James 5:16 confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
19 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude

The restoration and healing that comes when we have sinned comes from God through the prayers of the folks at church. If we are not honest with one another about our sin, how is everyone else supposed to bring you back when you start to wander? If you have not established a lifestyle of openness and confession during the time you are strong, I promise you are not going to suddenly start when you begin to drift form God.

Proverbs 28:13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

And there is no reason to try to hide your sin anyway, because eventually it is going to be exposed. 

Numbers 32:23 you may be sure that your sin will find you out.

When we refuse to confess our sins we are showing that we do not really believe Numbers 32:23 and the other passages that tell us that the truth is going to come out eventually. The Church plays no role in absolution or chastisement or punishment. But we do play a role in restoration, strengthening, support, compassion, encouragement, instruction, love, and prayer. There should be at least one person in the church who knows your deepest struggles and most private sins, and it should be someone who can help you. It should be a Galatians 6:1 type. 

Galatians 6:1 Brothers, if someone is caught by a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.

It should be someone who will restore you gently and part of restoration is helping you take the sin seriously. You do not want someone who just says, “Hey, don’t sweat it. The stuff I do is ten times worse than that.” You need someone who will help you take your sin seriously and show you the way to repentance. But also someone who will be compassionate and never look down on you, but who will understand that you fail in the areas where you struggle for the same reason they fail in the areas they struggle. It should be a person who will be committed to pray earnestly for you, and who is skilled enough with the Scriptures to help encourage you and strengthen you in the warfare – and someone who will also be open with you about their struggles. And if you say, “I don’t have anyone like that” – yes, you do – your small group leader. There are probably several people in your small group who could do that and who would be willing. But at the very least your small group leader could do it. And I can assure you that anyone in leadership here at Agape – all the advisors – are people you could trust to share private things, and who could help you and who would pray for you.

Conclusion: Give glory to God!
Joshua knew that Achen was the one who had sinned. Before Achen was put to death Joshua called him to confess publicly first. And he did so by saying, “Give glory to God.” (Josh.1:19) Confession glorifies God, because it shows His indictment and punishment to be just. It was not enough that everyone knew that Achen had committed a sin – he had to publicly confess it with his own mouth.
On Judgment Day every tongue will give glory to God. Every mouth will not only confess Jesus is Lord, but will also have to acknowledge the truth of what Jesus is saying when He pronounces the punishment for every last one of their sins. It will all be exposed, and every mouth will give glory to God by acknowledging that the hell they are about to be cast into forever is a just punishment and is indeed exactly what they deserve. But for us, we can give glory to God is a different way. We can confess our sins now. And even though there is pain and sorrow and humiliation that comes with exposure, there is the joy of forgiveness and cleansing that is far greater. Let us confess our sins to God and to one another. Let us peal back all the facades and phoniness and give glory to God. Let us walk in the light so that the defining factor of our lives is the truth about God and about our selves. Let us let His Word dwell in us so that we might go out with joy and be led forth in peace.

Benediction: Eph.1:3-7 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins

Sin in the Christian Life Part 4 Conditional Forgiveness? 1:9-10

Summary: Sin results in 1) condemnation, 2) guilt, 3) defilement, and 4) estrangement from God. Justification deals with #1 absolutely, but 3-4 in a non-absolute way in this life. There is still culpability, and a defiling, alienating effect when Christians sin, and the remedy is confession. According to Paul, David had sound teaching on the doctrine of justification by faith in Ps.32 (where he confesses sin), which means Ps.51 is a good place to learn how confession should look. He asks for forgiveness, cleansing, and restoration of the joy of nearness to God. Sin detonates a bomb in your heart that requires nothing short of re-creation. Praise God that He is a re-Creator! 

Problem: Are Christians forgiven or not?
Justification & Imputation
However our problem with sin still needs attention (conditional)
Solution: only justification is absolute in this life – not sanctification
No condemnation
Forgiveness at conversion
Cleansing at conversion
Reconciliation at conversion
But not absolute
Cleansing and forgiveness and fellowship come through repentance (walk in the light and confess)
David’s example
Argument for validity
Confession
Forgiveness
Cleansing
Reconciliation
Conclusion

5 Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him. 6 If we say, "We have fellowship with Him," and walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say, "We have no sin," we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, "We have not sinned," we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. 2:1 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father-- Jesus Christ the righteous One. 2 He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

Problem: Are Christians forgiven or not?
This section of 1 John we are currently studying is all about the solution to the problem of sin in the life of the Christian. It is a wonderful and important passage, but also a very controversial and difficult one, and the core of the difficulty is this – are we Christians forgiven or not?
Justification & Imputation
The doctrine of justification would seem to suggest that our sins are completely forgiven and will never be held against us. The moment you first believed and entrusted your life to Christ, you were justified, which means all your sins were credited to Jesus’ account and all His perfect righteousness was credited to your account. Justification does not come and go as we commit sins. The believer is always justified before God – even while he is in the middle of committing a sin.
However our problem with sin still needs attention (conditional)
So if that is all we knew, we might conclude that our sin problem is completely taken care of and needs no attention. But John tells us that even as believers there are some things we need to do to deal with our sin problem. We need to walk in the light (that is, live according to the truth). We need to confess our sins – to God and to one another. If we confess our sins and walk in the light He will forgive and cleanse us, if we do not He will not. And that confession is not talking about conversion. It is in the present tense – linear, ongoing, continuous action. So there is the difficulty. How is it that our sins can be dealt with completely by the cross and yet we still have to do something in order to be receiving forgiveness and cleansing on a routine basis? How can those both be true?
Solution: only justification is absolute in this life – not sanctification 
To answer that question we need to think through what happens when someone sins. Sin creates a number of problems, the worst of which is condemnation. Condemnation means a final sentence of death - eternal hell. That is one of the results of sin.
But Scripture also talks about other things that happen as a result of sin. Sin defiles us and makes a person dirty and repulsive to God, which means he cannot approach His presence. Sin also makes a person guilty before Him so that he deserves punishment. And the result of that is estrangement from God.
No condemnation
Now, when you became a Christian what happened with all that? What happened with regard to the problems of condemnation, guilt, defilement/contamination, and estrangement from God? Well, first of all, justification eliminated the problem of condemnation completely.

Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus

John 3:18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son

John 5:24 I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.

Romans 8:33-34 Who can bring an accusation against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns?

So no one who is joined together with Jesus Christ by faith is condemned. Everyone else is. But for Christians, no matter how bad or how often they mess up, no matter who accuses them, no matter what Satan tries to pull – they cannot be condemned if they are in Christ. So for the believer, the condemnation problem is no longer an issue.
But what about the other problems? What about the defiling and alienating effects of sin and our guilt before God? Those were also addressed at the moment of conversion.
Forgiveness at conversion
Obviously we receive forgiveness at conversion.

Acts 2:38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins

So the problem of filthiness in the heart is addressed at conversion, and so is the problem of guilt. To those who rejected Christ, Jesus said 

John 9:41 your guilt remains.

John 3:36 whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.

Contrary to what Bob George teaches, unbelievers are not forgiven. They remain guilty and are still fully culpable before God for their sin. But we have been forgiven.

1 John 2:12 I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.

Colossians 2:13 When you were dead in your sins … God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins
Cleansing at conversion
The non-Christian (who is separated from Christ) is utterly defiled by his or her sin. There is nothing in them that is pure – they are 100% contaminated defilement. But when a person becomes a Christian he is washed.

Titus 3:5 He saved us through the washing of rebirth

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed

So the non-Christian is nothing but dirty, and the Christian has been washed clean.
Reconciliation at conversion
Because of the fact that the world is defiled and contaminated because of their sin, and their sins are not forgiven, the result is total estrangement from God. They cannot know Him, cannot love Him, cannot have fellowship with Him, and are utterly separated from Him relationally because they are repulsive to Him. They are His enemies, and cannot approach His presence at all because of His anger toward them. Non-Christians are alienated from God and far from God. But those who are in Christ are reconciled to God.

Colossians 1:21-22 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ

Though we were once His enemies, God has adopted us as His own children.

Romans 8:15 you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father.

So, when you became a Christian you were rescued from all the perils of sin – condemnation, defilement, guilt, and estrangement from God.
But not absolute
However, there is a difference between our deliverance from condemnation and our deliverance from defilement, guilt and estrangement. Justification is absolute in this life – sanctification is not. Forgiveness, cleansing and reconciliation are not absolute in this life. We are delivered in every way from condemnation – there is zero condemnation for those who are in Christ. Our justification is as perfect and as complete as it will ever be. But we are not delivered from the defilement of sin in every way…yet. And the same is true of the guilt-producing and alienating effects of sin. Those have been dealt with in a marvelous and astounding way at conversion, but not in an absolute way like they will be when we go to heaven. In this life, even as justified saints, our sins still make us guilty before God in one sense, they still make us dirty on the inside, and they distance us from the presence of God. It is not like it is for the unbeliever – who has no access to the presence of God whatsoever. But there is a very real kind of estrangement from God that takes place when we sin.

King illustration
Imagine a powerful king who is at war with a bitter enemy. Anyone who sides with the enemy is barred from the king’s castle, which is an impenetrable fortress. There is a huge moat filled with crocodiles, giant walls with guards every few feet, and every other defense imaginable. There is absolutely no way in, which is good for his enemies, because if one of the enemies ever did somehow make it in he would be immediately put to death. Now imagine that you used to be one of those enemies. But you left that side and came to the king for forgiveness. He freely pardoned your treason, and not only welcomed you into his kingdom, but loved you so much he adopted you as his own son (or daughter).
So now your relationship with him has become very, very close and you dearly love each other. And you love to come into his throne room and spend time with Him. However from time to time you do rebel against His authority and resist him to his face. When you do that you are still his son, and you are still in his palace, but until you give up the rebellion you cannot come into the room where he is.

Relationship with God is dynamic (pleased vs. grieved)
That is not a perfect illustration, but I think it does give us a general picture of what our relationship with God is like. It is dynamic, not static. In other words – it changes. It does not just stay the same all the time. It grows and declines and has great victories and it has setbacks. There are times of thrilling nearness to Him and times of bitter estrangement from Him. 2 Corinthians 5:9 says we make it our goal to please Him, and Ephesians 4:30 warns us not to grieve Him. So sometimes He is more pleased with us and other times He is more grieved by us.

Grieving God  Estrangement 
And when God is grieved He turns His face away from you, which means His favorable presence becomes less accessible to you. It is always accessible to some degree if you are a Christian, but when we rebel against God by breaking one of His commands and resisting His perfect will, the consequence is that we have less access to the joy and peace and hope and strengthening and rest and renewal and courage and all the other things that come from the nearness of His presence. That is what it means for God to turn His face away from you. There is still some access to those things, but not nearly as much as when He is pleased with you. So when God’s people sin they pray things like:

Psalm 27:9 Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior.

Psalm 13:1-2 How long will you hide your face from me? 2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? 

Because of defilement
And one reason why God withdraws the nearness of His presence from us when we sin is because, even as Christians our sin does have a defiling, contaminating effect on us. It makes us dirty on the inside and in need of cleansing. The Old Testament pictures associate sin with the most disgusting things there are – excrement, a decaying corpse, leprous boils, and all the grossest, most sickening things there are. Sin is filthy to think of, filthy to talk about, filthy to desire, filthy to do. It is utterly detestable and offensive to God, and it contaminates your entire being. It makes you repulsive to God, which is why no one can come into God’s presence without having been cleansed. If you study what the Bible says about cleansing you will find that the purpose of cleansing is to enable a person to approach the presence of God.

Hebrews 10:22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

If you want to draw near to God, you must first be cleansed and washed from the defiling, contaminating effect of sin. God will not endorse our sin by allowing us to draw near to Him without that sin being washed away.

Bathed but still need to be washed
Now, I realize this may be a new concept for some of you. You may be thinking, “If I am cleansed and completely washed from head to toe at the moment of salvation, why would I ever need any more cleansing?” Jesus answered that question for us in John 13. This is the chapter where Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, and in doing so He was teaching them an important lesson about humility, love and servanthood. But that is not all He was teaching them.

John 13:6-12 He came to Simon Peter, who asked Him, "Lord, are You going to wash my feet?" 7 Jesus answered him, "What I'm doing you don't understand now, but afterwards you will know." 8 "You will never wash my feet-- ever!" Peter said. Jesus replied, "If I don't wash you, you have no part with Me."

Can you see there that this is more than just a lesson on servanthood? It is also a lesson about being cleansed by Jesus Christ. The physical washing of the feet with water was an illustration of a spiritual cleansing that had to take place in order to have a part with Christ. Nearness to Christ and close fellowship with Him can only happen if He washes you. And Peter got the message loud and clear.

9 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my head." 

If it is a matter of being cut off from the nearness of Christ if he is not washed by Jesus, Peter wants to be washed from head to toe. And at this point you might expect that Jesus would say, “Good! Now you got it.” But He doesn’t. Jesus does not go along with the bath request.

10 "One who has bathed," Jesus told him, "doesn't need to wash anything except his feet, but he is completely clean.” 

If you are a Christian the whole of your being has already been cleansed. You got the full bath at conversion. All that is needed now is to wash your feet. The total, systemic, filthiness and contamination you had as an unbeliever is wiped away. But as you walk through life and commit sins you pick up dirt on your feet, and that needs to be cleansed repeatedly – day by day as you keep stepping into the mud by committing sins. And without those routine cleansings Jesus says, “You have no part with Me.” Jesus said that to a man who had been completely cleansed already. There is a contaminating effect that sin has inside the heart of a Christian. 
So, when you become a Christian, condemnation is out of the picture and the problems of defilement, guilt, and separation from the presence of God are greatly changed as well. Instead of being locked out of the castle, you are adopted into the king’s own family. Instead of being filthy from head to toe, inside and out, through and through with zero purity, you have been completely cleansed by Jesus Christ and all your past sins have been washed away.
Cleansing and forgiveness and fellowship come through repentance (walk in the light and confess)
However, there is still a sense in which contamination and separation are an issue. Even as a child of the king you can provoke him to shut you out of his presence because of the contamination of your sin. So as Christians what we need is to sin less, and when we do sin, to be cleansed and forgiven. In 2:1 John is going to tell us how to do #1 – how to sin less. But he also wants us to understand how to obtain cleansing and forgiveness from the sins we do commit so we are not estranged from God.
And as we have seen throughout chapter one, the way to do that is to repent. You give up your excursion into the darkness and come back into the light. You confess your sins – both to brothers and sisters in Christ and to God. You acknowledge the truth about yourself, and you embrace the truth about God and strive to live in light of that truth. And when we do that, John says we get three things…
 1. Forgiveness (He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins – verse nine)
 2. Cleansing (the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin verse seven, and He is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness verse nine).
 3. Reconciliation (we have fellowship with God verse three)

David’s example 
Argument for validity 
We have already covered some basic, general, broad principles about confession. But it left us wondering about specific application. Exactly what should it look like when a godly man confesses his sin? What kind of role does sorrow play? What should be the main focus of your confession? What sorts of things should you say to God? If only we had an example from Scripture of how to talk to God about our sin. We do!
When we studied the life of David we found that Scripture is clear that one reason why we have so many details of David’s life, (and there is more written about David than any other person except the Lord Himself), is because God wants us to imitate David’s faith. His life is an example for us.
Now, some of those folks who want to say that 1 John one does not apply to believers will say, “You cannot follow David’s example – that is the Old Covenant!” David did not understand about the new situation with forgiveness of sin in the New Covenant- his example was applicable only during OT times. The person we need to look to is the Apostle Paul. He knew what he was talking about with regard to sin and forgiveness in the New Covenant. Fine – let’s go right to the heart of Paul’s teaching on justification by faith – Romans 4.
When Paul wants to explain to us about sin and forgiveness and justification for the believer in the New Covenant, what does he say? He quotes… David.

Romans 4:7-8 "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

That is a quotation right out of Psalm 32, where David confesses his sin. In Romans four Paul is teaching us about justification by faith alone, and the whole doctrine comes from Abraham in Genesis 12 and David in the Psalms. There is nothing uniquely New Covenant about justification by faith alone. So, if anyone was reluctant to look at David’s example of how to deal with sin in the life of the believer, hopefully now that Paul himself directed us to David’s prayers of confession we can feel comfortable going there. Are there some important differences between the Old Testament time and the New Testament time? Of course. But it is very important that you understand that forgiveness of sin and justification by faith is not among those differences. That is the same now as it was then. And when David confesses his sin, you will never guess what things he asks for: Cleansing, forgiveness, and restoration of nearness to God.
Confession
When we think of what confession is, it seems like a very simple matter – acknowledgement of guilt. You raise your hand and say, “I did it. Guilty as charged.” And David definitely does that in this prayer.

Psalm 51:3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. 5 Behold! I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me. 

Notice all the plurals. You might expect a guy who committed adultery to talk a lot about “the sin.” But David speaks not just of one sin but of his sinfulness in general. It is like he saw this boulder of his adultery and murder roll down the hill, and all it did was open his eyes to the Mount Everest of wickedness inside him. He talks about sin as being right at the core of his DNA – there from conception – always before his face.
True confession admits to wrong actions, but does not stop there. It acknowledges the polluted well out of which that sinful action came. When we say, “Wow, I don’t know why I did that evil thing, but it certainly wasn’t in my heart,” we are not truly confessing our sin. It was in your heart – that is why you did it. We need to confess not only the tip, but also the whole iceberg. 
So there is no question that when we confess our sins that involves acknowledging our guilt. When David says that God is justified in judging him, that is an admission of guilt. However that is nowhere near all there is to it. It is possible to acknowledge you committed a crime and be proud of it; or to laugh it off as a joke; or to think nothing of it. But true confession is the cry of an anguished soul that is crushed with sorrow over the sin.

16-17 You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; You are not pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. God, You will not despise a broken and humbled heart.

Confession is true confession when it rises up out of a heart that has been humbled and broken and crushed, and that desires more than anything to be close with God once again. And that desire will be expressed by seeking forgiveness, cleansing and restoration to intimacy. 
Forgiveness 
Function of compassion 
Sometimes people say it is okay to confess your sins, but you should not ask for forgiveness, because you are already forgiven. But forgiveness is the very first thing David asked for.

Psalm 51:1,2 A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had come to Bathsheba. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

9 Turn Your face away from my sins and blot out all my guilt. 

When a Christian sins there is a record, and God’s face is turned toward that record. There is real guilt – not just guilt feelings, but actual guilt before God. (Guilt feelings are when you feel bad for your sin. Actual guilt is when you are culpable before God and actually deserving of harshness from Him because of your sin.) David is asking God to blot out the record of the guilt and turn His face away from the sin. Whatever God’s face is toward, is the thing that will be the basis of how God acts toward you. So if His face is toward your guilt, that means He is going to deal with you in accordance with that guilt. In other words, He is going to deal harshly with you. Condemnation is not the issue, but painful earthly consequences, distance from His favorable presence, vulnerability to more failure, etc. are very real possibilities. Sometimes when we sin God showers us with mercy. Other times He stings us with the rod. If His face is toward your guilt that means it is going to be the rod. And so David asks God to look away from His guilt and operate instead according to His great mercy. 
The mercy of God was the starting point for David. Before he even mentions his sin he appeals to God’s mercy, love and compassion. His sights are fixed on God’s nature even more than on his own guilt. God’s forgiveness is a function of His compassion. He is motivated to show mercy because He feels compassion inside His heart for you. God actually feels sorry for you because of your plight of having to be the object of His displeasure! And the compassion God has toward you when He looks at the horrible plight you are in when you sin - that compassion is so vast, so deep, so high, so wide - that though your sins outnumber the hairs on your head, His mercy outnumbers the stars in the sky. His mercy is vast both in quality and quantity. He shows mercy over and over and over as we keep repeating our sins. And the depth of His compassion reaches far beneath even the lowest and most base of our sinful motives and rises far above even the highest, most scandalous evils. Oh, what a beautiful and welcome sight is the Lord’s mercy to the broken sinner! 
And one way to experience His compassion, by the way, is to let that very compassion flow through you to others who have sinned. When we see people sin we should be filled with compassion toward them. There is a place for righteous anger, but we know our anger is not righteous if it is devoid of genuine feelings of compassion toward the sinner.
So, when we sin there is a time of chastisement and consequence during which God deals with us more according to His displeasure than His compassion. That chastisement is always 100% redemptive – never mere punishment. However it is still painful, so David is making a heartfelt appeal for God to bring that time to an end sooner rather than later. It is a good thing to plead with God to deal with us according to His mercy and compassion in a time when we have provoked Him to deal harshly with us. That is what it means to ask forgiveness. 
Cleansing
Believed God would cleanse him
The next thing David asks for is cleansing. 

2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

The thought of being repulsive to God is absolutely intolerable to David. He cannot stand the thought so he wants more than anything to be clean. David’s prayer was not to appeal the earthly consequences; he just begged to be clean. And he fully believed that God would do it. He said “Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.” So many times we say, “Dear Lord, please cleanse me” but deep down we have no expectation that He will do so. But there is no doubt in David’s mind. If you think your sin is too big, too ugly, too frequent, too inexcusable to be forgiven, or the stains are too indelible and ground in to ever be fully clean, spend some more time thinking about the cross, and how great a price was actually paid for your sin.
Reconciliation 
David was miserable because of estrangement 
So David prays for forgiveness, he prays for cleansing, and then one more - he prays for reconciliation with God. David was miserable.

Psalm 32:3-4 …my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.

And David knew exactly what was going on. That pain and agony was not because of a chemical imbalance, it was not hormones, it was not low blood sugar - it was not even the harsh circumstances of his life. It was estrangement from the God with Whom he had walked so closely in the past, so David begs for that closeness to be restored. He knew from experience that nearness to God was the source of real joy and he longed for that joy once again.

8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation 

Usually when you are in the depths of depression, and you feel like your very bones have been crushed, in times like that we think it is a big thing just to pray, “God, help me get out of bed.” We ask for little, small things, because asking to go from the depths of despair to the heights of exuberant joy just seems unrealistic. But David knew what it was like to be close to God, and there was not any question in his mind that he would be full of joy if God would just turn His face toward David.
So when we sin, and God turns His face away, it is crucial that we interpret that for what it is – the expression of God’s displeasure over our sin – because only then will you appreciate the joy of restoration. It is a big prayer for David to say, “Let the bones You have crushed rejoice.” But it is an even bigger thing to ask “Let the bones You have not crushed rejoice.” To experience the sweetness of restoration we must feel the sting of broken fellowship. I am not saying you should interpret all trials as a sign of God’s displeasure, but when we seek earnestly after Him and do not receive the joy and peace and delight that come from the nearness of His presence, it should sober us to think that He has turned His face away. And the purpose of that turning away is chastisement to drive us to seek more earnestly. The more excruciating the sting of lost fellowship, the more rich and full and overpowering will be the joy of restored fellowship. When the world gets relief from their superficial griefs all it brings is an even more superficial joy.
David wants restored joy – but not just for the sake of joy. He wants joy for the sake of praise.

Psalm 51:15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

The reason David wanted joy was so that he could praise God. Only God can open the lips of praise. David knew a lot of great psalms, he knew the verbiage and terminology – he could craft all kinds of excellent statements of praise; but he could not open his own lips in true praise. Saying the right words is within our power. Generating enough joy and delight in God for true praise to come out of our mouths is not within our immediate control. It is a work of God. 

Conclusion 
As Christians we are in constant danger of falling into error on one of two extremes on either side of the truth about our sin. On the one extreme is the error of focusing only on God’s forgiveness and underestimating the magnitude of the defiling effect of sin in our lives. The other extreme is the error of focusing only on the guilt of our sin and failing to appreciate the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice and God’s forgiveness. I plan on going hard after that second error. We will look into the glories and wonders of the incalculable grace available to us and the completeness of cleansing we can enjoy.
But before we can appreciate that we need to take seriously this matter of real guilt and real defilement and real estrangement from God in the Christian life when we sin. Listen to how radical a solution David called for.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart Oh God 

He calls for an actual act of creation – not just restoration, but creation. David had wreaked such devastation and destruction within himself that only a God who can call a Universe into being by a single word is capable of the kind of restoration he needed. The same is true for us.
In our natural thinking it seems like our sin is just a slip-up, and all that is needed is for us to be more careful next time – or to try a little harder next time. But the truth is, when we sin there is a bomb that detonates inside our soul and the devastation that results – especially the damage done to our affections – is staggering. Satan will try to tell you that if you just do some little sin it’s not going to hurt anything, and you will be able to get right back on track with your walk with God without missing a beat. And so we listen to him, and we sin, and a bomb detonated inside us that sends defiling, contaminating shrapnel throughout our soul. After the detonation we desire God and His Word less, sin is more attractive to us, heaven seems like a distant, irrelevant mirage; righteousness losses its appeal, Scripture becomes dry, the world gets big and God gets small, and spiritual things just do not seem real. There is no greater oxymoron than the phrase “a harmless little sin.” There are some sins that are more devastating than others, but there are no sins that are harmless.
But God is not only the Creator but the re-Creator. He repairs what is broken and “restores the years the locust have eaten” (which means He undoes the damage inflicted by His own chastisement). When the bomb goes off the damage is exceedingly painful, and the restoration may be a long, painful process; but when it does come it is beautiful. There is never a life so devastated that God can not fully redeem it. He makes all things beautiful in His time. The damage and devastation in your life can be redeemed – not just patched up or turned toward some small good, but fully restored into something more beautiful than it ever was before. The more hopeless the mess, the greater the glory when He redeems it.
But that glory is marred and obscured if He brings that restoration in a context in which it will not be obvious where the restoration came from. And so very often God withholds the restoration until we cry out to Him with the kind of desperation David had in Psalm 51, so that when the restoration comes there is no chance at all that we will believe the lie that we pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or that the instruments God used to restore us (other people, circumstances, etc.) were the source of our restoration. David experienced God’s re-Creation but only after offering one of the most earnest, desperate prayers ever recorded. No wonder his response, after God restored him, was, 

Psalm 32:1-11 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

Only when our eyes are opened to the desolate wasteland that is left behind in our hearts by our sin will we have any idea of the blessedness of the man who is restored from that. And it should be our craving and deep longing for that blessedness that should drive our prayers of repentance. 

Benediction: Jeremiah 50:20 In those days, at that time," declares the LORD, "search will be made for Israel's guilt, but there will be none, and for the sins of Judah, but none will be found, for I will forgive the remnant I spare.

Sin in the Christian Life Part 5 Dealing with Guilt 2:1

Summary: The solution to sin is to repent (loving God by preferring Him to the pleasure of sin and turning back to Him and walking in the light), to fear (loving God by being afraid of alienation from Him – take the warnings seriously!), and by faith (trusting in His advocacy). His advocacy does not mean the Father is reluctant or that they are not on the same page, but that the Father wants all His mercy on us to be given as an expression of favor of His Son. Jesus is a sympathetic High Priest, and the Father is eager to listen to and grant His requests for mercy on our behalf. The last “if” statement is an ellipsis – If you sin, then ___________ because Jesus is your advocate.” 

Introduction: The Problem of Guilt
I. Repentance
II. Fear: Sin less through heeding warnings
How does what he wrote prevent sin?
It warns us against apostasy
Still, what about the promises of forgiveness?
III. Faith – trust in His love and Advocacy
Blood applied through Jesus advocacy
Big theme in Scripture
Difficulty
Solution: God’s love for the Son
The kinds of ways Jesus intercedes
Jesus’ Sympathy
God’s tenderness
The “if – then” ellipsis

1 My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father-- Jesus Christ the righteous One. 

Introduction: The Problem of Guilt
Sigmund Freud taught that guilt is a sickness that drives you to self-sabotage. Your unconscious feels the need to be punished, so it seeks out a bad marriage or a business crisis or some physical injury or whatever, so that you get the punishment you have coming to you. And like so many of Freud’s wrong ideas, that concept of guilt feelings as a sickness that needs to be cured is common in our culture. For many counselors guilt is seen as an enemy that we must fight and usually the method of fighting it is either some kind of attempt to convince the person that he really is not so bad, or to prescribe a tranquilizer or some other drug to help him cope with his painful feelings.
On the other extreme are certain religious people, who think making people feel as guilty as possible is what ministry is all about. There are some preachers who seem to just delight in making everybody feel bad. They never offer solutions, or give hope, or labor for anyone’s joy, they just try to make everyone feel as bad as possible about their lives. Some people have come out of churches like that thinking that is pretty much all there is to Christianity – guilt. 
So what should we do about guilt? Is it a disease? Is it an enemy? Is it something you are supposed to use as a tool to punish yourself for your sin so you will not sin again? And what should you do when guilt feelings just will not go away? Even after you have repented and asked forgiveness and made things right to the best of your ability, and you are still racked with guilt – what should you do?
We are studying a passage of Scripture that addresses that issue directly and in a wonderfully helpful way. And before we jump back into it, I should probably explain something that I mentioned just in passing last week. There is a difference between guilt and guilt feelings. Guilt is a state of being. It is what you have when you have actually done something wrong and are actually culpable before God and deserving of some consequence. That is a reality regardless of how you feel. It is possible to have actual guilt and no guilt feelings at all. It is also possible to have guilt feelings even when there is no actual guilt. You did not do anything wrong, and yet you feel guilty.
The ideal is for your feelings to match reality. So if you are not guilty you should not have guilt feelings. And if you are guilty, then you should have guilt feelings until that guilt is eliminated. One of the great curses of life is the problem of having guilt but not having guilt feelings. It is like losing sensation in your hand so you can not feel pain. People who feel no pain at all will destroy their limbs. Pain is a very important gift – both physically and spiritually. When you sin there are some negative things that you should feel. 2 Corinthians 7 says that we are not to have worldly sorrow, but we are to have godly sorrow. (vv.10,11) And so while the world is gulping down handfuls of Prozac to get rid of their guilt feelings, God is saying things like this:

James 4:9-10 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 

That is not a popular message. Now if we placed an ad in the newspaper advertising a sermon series on James 4 titled, “How to Feel More Guilty,” or “Five Easy Steps Toward Attaining Grief and Gloom in Your Life,” my guess is we would not be overrun with new visitors that day. Because this world’s motto is “Blessed are those who avoid sadness and pain at any cost.” But Jesus said,

Matthew 5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

When you sin you should feel sadness for having dishonored God’s name, and grief for having offended Him. 
That is not to say sorrow should be the dominating characteristic of our demeanor. Not at all. Joy should dominate our lives. Deep, rich, moving, song-producing joy that is bigger than any sorrow. But to get to that kind of joy we need cleansing from our sin and restoration to nearness to God. And that comes, says John, through confession. And part of true confession, as we saw last week, is contrition and grief over our sin. The penitent tax collector and not the Pharisee went away justified after saying “Be merciful to me a sinner.” (Lk.18:13)

I. Repentance 
So step one in dealing with our sin is repentance – confess your sins and come back into the light. The solution to sin is always loving God. And the first step in loving God is to come to Him. And if you have turned away then that means you need to turn back. Now let’s take a look at #2.

 II. Fear: Sin less through heeding warnings

Step two in defeating sin in your life comes in chapter two verse one.

2:1 I am writing you these things so that you may not sin.
 
One of the ways we deal with the sin problem in our lives is to make an effort to sin less. “Isn’t that kind of obvious?” Not necessarily. There are a lot of teachers who see the emphasis on forgiveness in the gospel and they assume that is all that matters. They say, “Don’t be worried about exerting yourself toward fighting against sin. Just learn how to accept forgiveness.” They say, “You cannot defeat sin in your own strength,” and they define any effort you put forth as “your own strength” (as though God did not ever exert His power through our efforts). That is a terrible misunderstanding of the way God works. 

Colossians 1:29 To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

Relying on the power of God is not at all opposed to exerting your own effort. We need to work hard in this fight against sin in our lives.

2 Peter 1:5 make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge…

2 Peter 3:14 make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

Understanding and learning to delight in forgiveness of sin is a very important thing, but it is not the only thing we need to do. John is also interested in preventing sin. And so is Jesus. Jesus did not die just to pay for our sins – He also died to prevent us from sinning.

Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope-- the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Jesus did not just die to purchase forgiveness for us. He also died for the purpose of purifying for Himself a people who are eager to do what is good, and who have learned to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions and live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. The next time you are tempted with a sin, remember, “Jesus died to keep me from doing this, He suffered in order to make me a person who is eager to do what is good.”
Most of my life I have thought that if I was tempted, and I said “no,” that was a victory. But I am learning these days not to be satisfied with mere resisted temptation, but only in despised evil and delighted-in good. So when temptation hits me, and I say, “No, I am not going to do that,” instead of just leaving it at that, I take a couple minutes and address the problem of messed-up affections in my heart. And I think about how delightful the good really is and how terrible the evil really is until I can feel my affections begin to shift in the right direction.
God wants us to put forth effort to become what Jesus died to make us. No matter how small the sin seems, it is never okay to sin. No sin is ever even close to being worth the damage it does – not even the sins that last only two seconds.

How does what he wrote prevent sin?
The question is, how does what John wrote help us sin less?

2:1 I am writing you these things (ch.1) so that you may not sin.

How does saying, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleans us from all unrighteousness” help us sin less?

It warns us against apostasy
That would be a tough question to answer if only the positive statements in chapter one applied to us. Two weeks ago we addressed the question of who the “we” is in chapter one. And I argued against the view that says the entire chapter applies only to unbelievers. But in the Q&A the question came up about the possibility that the negative statements are for unbelievers and the positive statements are for believers. So the idea is that when John says “we” he does not mean “we Christians” but rather “we churchgoers.” The “we” includes all the people who are including themselves in with the community of those who claim to be Christian. And John’s purpose is to enable them to discern whether they are saved or lost. So the negative statements, like “if we walk in the darkness” are intended to enable the phony Christians to realize that they are phony. And the positive statements, like “if we walk in the light” are intended for true believers in order to give them assurance that they are truly saved. In that view, the purpose is not to warn believers about any danger, but rather to simply generate assurance for believers and to eliminate assurance for false believers. 
In my estimation it is very unlikely that that is what John is doing. The writers of Scripture are not interested in making a distinction between churchgoers as opposed to non-churchgoers. The concern of the writers of Scripture – and especially John, is to distinguish between believers and unbelievers. And so when he talks about “us” vs. “them” the most natural way to take it is as referring to true Christians as opposed to non-Christians. If they are lost, then the fact that they attend church is irrelevant. 
A second reason why I think the “we” cannot include unbelievers has to do with the purpose of the book of 1 John. The purpose is not merely to inform us whether or not we are saved. The purpose is to warn the readers who are at risk of being led astray by the false teachers. The unbelievers are already astray. John is not writing to prevent non-Christians from becoming worse non-Christians. He is writing to warn his dear children in the faith.

2:24-28 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. … 26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray….28 And now, dear children, continue in him

3:7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray.

So if John is telling us that his purpose in writing is to warn his dear, beloved, children in the faith not to be led astray, then let’s accept that as the purpose of the book. And if we do so, the purpose of chapter one is the same as the rest of the book – to warn believers against being led astray.
And if we take it that way, the answer to our question becomes very simple. How does what John has written help prevent us from sinning? It helps us avoid sin by warning us. If we pursue the way of sin we are going in a direction that ends up in the darkness, where there is no fellowship with God.
This is one reason why I am so concerned about doctrinal systems that are forever coming up with methods of interpretation that take the warnings in Scripture and apply them to non-Christians. Those warnings are one of the means God has given us to help us escape sin. Fear of God is a crucial component in defeating sin.

Exodus 20:20 God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.

Peter gives warnings in 2 Peter about apostasy, and then ends his book this way:

2 Peter 3:17 Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position.

Is your position in Christ secure? Yes! But does that mean the warnings do not apply to you? No. It is by heeding those warnings, and being afraid of what is threatened, that you remain in your secure position. There is room for debate on the question of eternal security and apostasy, but wherever you land on that issue make sure you do not come up with a theology that makes the warnings non-applicable for you.
So, how does chapter one help us avoid sin? By warning us. One part of loving God is preferring Him to the pleasures of sin and turning to Him – that is repentance. Another aspect of loving God is fearing His displeasure and the loss of intimacy with Him more than you fear anything else. And that is what the warnings are for.

Still, what about the promises of forgiveness? 
But still that leaves us with the question about the promise of forgiveness. If you are trying to get people not to sin, why make such a point about forgiveness? Isn’t the promise of total absolution if you confess kind of like giving a license to sin?
Coming into the light guards against abuse of forgiveness 
John is not worried about that because to be forgiven you have to be confessing your sin, and confessing involves coming into the light, and coming into the light is a process that reveals the lies of Satan and the truth of God. It is when you come to your senses and prefer God as a greater treasure than sin. If you have an attitude that says, “I will just confess and then go right back to my sin” then you have not come back into the light yet- which means you have not really confessed. As long as you are still seeing that sin as a great treasure – a treasure worth jeopardizing fellowship with God for, you are still in the darkness. You know that your confession is real when you come far enough back into the light that the sin no longer looks like a treasure to you. You see it for the loathsome, disgusting, contaminating, sorrow-producing, damaging, unsatisfying, lethal catastrophe that it is. And when you see it that way you are not going to have an attitude that says, “I’ll just sin and then repent later.” That is like saying, “I’ll just break my leg and let it heal later.” Anyone who says that just does not understand about broken legs.
And damage to a relationship is more painful and harder to recover from than a broken leg. Someone who says, “I’ll sin now and be restored to God later” is like a married man who says, “I’ll have an affair now and then fall back in love with my wife later.” If you are lacking in love for God now, then re-developing that love for God after indulging in sin will be harder, not easier. 

III. Faith – trust in His love and Advocacy 
So, the second solution to the problem of sin is to heed the warnings and put forth every effort to sin less. But what about when you have already sinned? What about the despair you have when you have already committed adultery against God with this world?

…But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father

Praise God there is a remedy for our past sin! And that remedy is a person who acts as an advocate for us. (An advocate is someone who speaks up for you to someone else.)
Blood applied through Jesus advocacy 
Last week we saw that the cleansing from the OT rituals was applied with a hyssop branch. (Nm.19) In our day the cleansing from the blood of Jesus Christ is not applied with a hyssop branch. So how is it applied to your individual sins? It is applied in response to our faith by Jesus speaking up for you before the Father.
You see, forgiveness is not an automated system. Cleansing and forgiveness for a specific sin is not automatically applied when you sin just because of the cross. It is only applied when Jesus specifically speaks to the Father on your behalf and asks for cleansing, forgiveness, and reconciliation on your behalf. 
When you commit a sin, it would be fitting for God to deal with you harshly, and it would be fitting for God to show you mercy. Both are consistent with God’s character and nature. And Jesus lobbies on your behalf for the latter. When we sin and God gives us blessing instead of chastisement it is always because Jesus requested that for us in that particular instance. The hyssop that applies the blood of Jesus’ sacrifice to your specific sin is the current, present tense intercession that Jesus Christ is carrying on right now before the Father on your behalf. 
Big theme in Scripture
Jesus’ role as intercessor was prophesied way back in Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53:12 he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

And it is a prominent theme in the New Testament. 

Hebrews 7:25 He always lives to intercede for [those who come to God through Him].

Hebrews 9:24 For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one) but into heaven itself, that He might now appear in the presence of God on our behalf.

Romans 8:34 Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

So what do we do about sin in our lives? 
•	Repentance – Confess your sins and walk in the light (Love for God is expressed in preferring Him above sin so that you turn back to Him.)
•	Fear – Take the warnings in Scripture seriously (Love for God is expressed in being terrified at the prospect of His displeasure with you or any kind of estrangement from Him.)
•	Faith – Trust in the Advocacy of Christ on your behalf (Love for God is expressed in faith – gladly letting yourself drop into the net of His great and precious promises.)
Repentance – fear – faith.

Difficulty
For a little over a year now I have been really struggling to understand this concept of Jesus as our advocate before the Father. Have you ever read something in Scripture that you know should be delightful to you, but instead it is troubling to you? That is how I have been with this doctrine. And the reason it was troubling is two-fold. First, because it is a constant, ongoing thing. If the price was paid 2000 years ago, why does Jesus have to keep on pleading on my behalf today? The Father is not forgetful. He does not have to be reminded that the price for my sin was paid. He accepted that price once – so why does Jesus have to continually keep on pleading with Him to show mercy to me?
The other thing that bothered me was the fact that it makes it seem like Jesus and the Father are not on the same page. It makes it seem like the Father keeps wanting to go the way of judgment, but Jesus persuades Him to go the way of mercy. If the Father’s natural inclination is to show me mercy, why does Jesus have to constantly plead with Him to do so? And if He is not inclined that way, and Jesus is, it seems like a division within the Godhead.
Solution: God’s love for the Son
The answer to both problems finally emerged last week as I was studying the history of intercession in Scripture. There are a number of occasions where an innocent person who is favored by God pleads on behalf of someone who is not innocent. Some examples are Moses and Samuel pleading for mercy for disobedient Israel, or Abraham for Sodom. And it occurred to me as I was studying those that God’s mercy on the guilty party was granted as an expression of His favor for the one doing the interceding. So His mercy on Israel was a demonstration of His favor for Moses. That becomes clear in passages like Jer.15:1 and Ez.14:14. 
So the point of showing mercy in response to intercession is to make a statement about how much God loves and favors the one doing the interceding. The reason God shows us no mercy apart from Jesus’ intercession is so all God’s mercy comes as an expression of love for His Son. God will not forgive us except as a favor to His beloved Son. But when it is a favor to His Son, God cannot show mercy fast enough – that is how much He loves His Son.
It would not be a good thing for us if we just received favor from God automatically – apart from the intercession of Jesus. The Lord wants us to receive it as a result of His pleading for us. That way everything glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. And Christ receiving glory is infinitely more important than us receiving mercy.
The Father’s biggest agenda is that His Son be honored and loved.

John 5:22-23 the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.
 
That is what God the Father cares about more than anything. So when you think of Jesus interceding for us, do not think of the Father as being reluctant. Just the opposite – He is the one who initiated the whole thing and provided the propitiation.

1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an propitiation for our sins.

The entire thing was the Father’s doing. He is not reluctant. If showing mercy to us were contrary to His nature in the slightest degree He would not do it and nothing could persuade Him to do it. God is not like us. He cannot be persuaded to do anything other than what He wants the most. He is not reluctant – He just wants all His mercy to us to come as a favor to His Son.
So whenever you confess your sin remember – the only reason your request can (and will) be granted is because of the exuberant, enthusiastic, infinite love the Father has for the Son; and because of how utterly deserving Jesus is to have His requests on your behalf granted (and because of Jesus’ eagerness to make those requests on your behalf). Satan’s plan is to discourage you with your sin by keeping the entire focus on you, not on Christ. When your works reproach you, let His works encourage you! 
The kinds of ways Jesus intercedes 
So what does that look like? What sort of things do you suppose Jesus is saying to the Father in heaven right now about you? We have some examples in Scripture. Jesus once prayed one of those intercessory prayers out loud, and it was recorded in Scripture in John 17.

9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those You have given Me…

So this chapter gives us an idea of what it sounds like when Jesus speaks to the Father on our behalf. 

11 … Holy Father, protect them by Your name that You have given Me, so that they may be one as We are one. 

15 I am not praying that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. 

17 Sanctify them by the truth

21 May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You sent Me

24 Father, I desire those You have given Me to be with Me where I am. Then they will see My glory, which You have given Me because You loved Me before the world's foundation. 

So Jesus asks the Father to protect us, keep us, sanctify us (make us holy), to unify us, and most of all for us to be near Christ and see His glory. In Lk.22 He prayed for Peter.

Luke 22:32 But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And you, when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

In John 14 He prayed that God would send the Holy Spirit as a comforter and helper and counselor for us.

John 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.

Why did Jesus pray all that? What is the purpose of all Jesus’ intercession on our behalf? Take a look at the opening words to His high priestly prayer in Jn.17.

John 17:1 Jesus … looked up to heaven, and said: Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You…

Jesus intercedes for us in order to magnify and display His glory. It brings Him glory because the Father will not bless us unless it is a favor to Him, so every blessing you ever receive is a divine declaration of the worth and honor and glory and worthiness of the Son. So ask for lots of blessing from God, because Jesus will pass those requests along to the Father so that the Father will have lots of occasions to say, “This is how much I love my Son.”

Jesus’ Sympathy
And the Lord wants us to understand also what Jesus’ attitude is while He is interceding for us. He knows how hard it is for you, and He is exceedingly sympathetic. 

Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our 
weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

I am not sure if that means He is actually more sympathetic because of His sufferings, or if it just means we are more able to be confident that He is sympathetic. But either way the text says that His sympathy for us in our weaknesses is a function of His having gone through all that we go through.
So does that mean Jesus and the Father are not on the same page? Not at all.

God’s tenderness
Look back at the beginning of verse one.

1 My little children

That is a very affectionate term. In the middle of talking to us about our sin, John interrupts his flow of thought and uses a term that communicates tender, fatherly love. Why? Why does John feel this way? He feels this way because he has the heart of God toward us. John is writing as a spokesman for God. This is the way God feels. Is there wrath? Yes. Anger? Yes. But also compassion that is higher than the heavens and deeper than the ocean.
If you have a conception of God in your mind that pictures Him as an impossible-to-please Father, or as someone who is sitting in heaven with an upraised rod just waiting for you to blow it so he can thump you with it, or as a god whose displeasure with you is greater than his pleasure in you as his child; then you have invented an idol that you are calling God. That is not the true God.
There are two kinds of Christians. Some struggle with accepting the fact of God’s wrath over sin and some who struggle with understanding God’s deep delight in His people and His boundless compassion. The people in the first group hear the statement, “God loves you,” and think, “Of course God loves me. Why wouldn’t He?” But they hear about God’s wrath and displeasure with them over their sin and it just does not compute. Those people have a distorted view of themselves – they do not understand the wickedness of their own sin.
The other group has an accurate view of themselves but a distorted view of God. It makes perfect sense to them that God would be angry with them, but when you speak of God’s delight in them it does not compute. And so to that second group God inspires His apostle to write a chapter about the problem of sin in the life of the Christian, and in the middle of writing it he is suddenly so moved with compassion and love that he interrupts himself and says, “My dear, little children…” That is the heart of God toward you.
And if you are going to have success in overcoming sin in your life you are going to have to understand that, because the greatest success in overcoming sin comes through love for God. The more you love Him and delight in Him and desire fellowship with Him, the easier it will be to prefer thoughts of Him over evil thoughts, and nearness to Him over the pleasures of sin. Trying to defeat sin by just beating up on yourself does not work. All that does is push you into despair, which weakens your faith rather than strengthening your faith.
So if you are one of the ones who has twisted God into some grumpy ogre, repent of that and spend time meditating on passages of Scripture about His tenderness and compassion until it starts to sink into your heart. And if you are one who thinks God’s love for you makes perfect sense, your distorted view of yourself is going to prevent you from the depths of joy that can only be known by a person who has felt the flames of hell and wrath that he deserves before feeling the marvelous, rescuing hand of God’s compassion and mercy. So step one in defeating sin is to understand both the wickedness of sin and the compassion of God toward repentant sinners who are in Christ.
Whenever Jesus asks for blessing on your behalf, the Father - that awesome, righteous, angry Judge – hears and responds willingly and eagerly and enthusiastically and with great joy and delight in His heart. God the Father ca not wait to bless you for Jesus’ sake. Isa.30:18 pictures God as sitting on the edge of His seat looking for an excuse to shower some delightful blessing on your life.

Isaiah 30:18 The LORD longs to be gracious to you. He rises to show you compassion.

And the only thing that holds Him back is His waiting for a way to do it that will bring glory to His Son. So we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him to take care of us, Jesus pleads with the Father on our behalf, the Father enthusiastically pours out blessing on us in response, we get the blessing, Jesus gets the glory, and we all get joy.
The “if – then” ellipsis 
In verse one there is what grammarians call an ellipsis. An ellipsis is when you leave something out of your statement that you expect the listener to fill in. For example, if you say, “He’s the best doctor I know,” that sentence technically does not make sense. What you really mean is, “He is the best doctor of all the doctors I know.” But you just leave out the phrase “of all the doctors” because people will fill that in automatically.
It is not uncommon to use ellipsis with “if-then” statements. For example, I might tell you, “I hope no one in this church ever gets in serious trouble. But if you do get into trouble – you have people here who love you.” What does that mean? Does it mean we only love you if you get into trouble? That is what the sentence would technically mean in the exact way it is stated. But that is not the intended meaning. The intended meaning is the part that is left out.
What that sentence means is something like, “If you get into trouble, do not despair, because we love you.” Or, “If you get into trouble please come to us, because we love you.” Or, “If you get into trouble, don’t be too embarrassed to confess it to us, because we love you.” Or, “If you get into trouble, ask for our help, because we love you.”
Now, what is the purpose of the ellipsis? In the case of that example most likely the purpose would be to leave room for all of those things. Do not despair, please come to us, ask for help, don’t be embarrassed, we will assist you, we will not look down on you – all of that. You want the person to fill in everything that is implied by the “then” part of the sentence. If you get into trouble, we love you and so fill in the blank. Fill in everything that is fitting given the fact that we love you.
I believe that is exactly what John is doing here. When he says, “If anyone does sin we have an Advocate” he is not saying that there is no Advocate unless we sin. Or that our sinning is the cause that brings about the effect of Jesus’ advocacy. It is an ellipsis. John is saying, “If you do sin, do not despair because Jesus is an Advocate.” And, “Turn to Jesus and rely on Him, because He is an Advocate.” If you sin, Jesus is your advocate with the Father so fill in the blank. Everything that is implied by the fact that Jesus is our Advocate is what we are to fill in between the “if” and the “then” in verse one. 
So my dear, beloved brothers and sisters – do not sin. Learn about the magnitude of your wickedness and guilt, and learn about God’s compassion and delight in His children, and do not stop meditating on those things until your heart is drawn to Him in love, so that it becomes possible to prefer fellowship with Him over sin. And when you do sin, and the enemy tries to destroy you with discouragement, and every time you try to seek comfort he shouts at you, “What about the wickedness of your sin; What about the fact that you commit that some sin over and over; What about all the people you have hurt; What about the fact that you cannot take back what you said or did; What about the undeniable attraction you have to the world; WHAT ABOUT YOUR SIN??!! What about my sin? Jesus Christ, the righteous One, the sympathetic High Priest, is my advocate with the Father, and the Father cannot wait to express His favor for His Son by listening to Jesus’ pleas for mercy for me therefore… fill in the blank. And it will take all of eternity to fill in that blank.

Benediction: Heb.7:24 Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. 6 Such a high priest meets our need-- one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

Sin in the Christian Life Part 6 The Atonement 2:2

Summary: The world’s greatest threat is the wrath of God. The solution is propitiation/atonement, which brings us from wrath to favor. It involves cleansing, but also includes appeasement and reconciliation. The OT background is atonement (sacrifice, forgiveness, cleansing, reconciliation, and redemption. He redeemed us from 1) bondage to the law, 2) condemnation, and 3) enslavement to sin – as well as bondage to the curse that will be redeemed in the future. The price was Jesus’ death and perfect life (for imputed righteousness). Redemption was for the whole world in that Jesus is the Savior of the whole world – a legitimate offer to all people. 

Isaiah 52:13-54:1 See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. 14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him--his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness-- 15 so will he sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand. 53:1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. 11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. 

The problem: Wrath
When they interview the Miss America contestants they always ask about their goals and aspirations, and usually they are pretty grandiose. They want to solve the world’s biggest problems. They want to put an end to world hunger, or reverse global warming, or eliminate war. Some of those things really are problems. Others are more imagined than real. But it makes you wonder – of all the dangers and threats and crises, which is the biggest of all? What is the greatest threat to the human race? Of all the bad things going on – which one is the most pressing emergency? Is it crime? Natural disasters? Pollution? War? Terrorism? Disease? Poverty? Starvation? What is the greatest threat facing mankind right now? The answer to that question is very easy, because there is one threat – one looming disaster that is far more serious and deadly than all of those others combined. And it is not chlorofluorocarbons, or rain forest depletion or even SUVs. The greatest threat facing humanity at this time is the wrath of God.

Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men 

Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous judge, a God who is angry every day.

Isaiah 34:2-3 The LORD is angry with all nations … He will totally destroy them, 3 … the mountains will be soaked with their blood. 

Think of a time when you were the angriest you ever remember being. Something happened that made you so furious that your whole body tensed up, and your pulse doubled, and your face turned red, and every impulse in you was to just lash out at someone. There is something about anger that drives you to want to pound on something, or destroy something – or someone. That is part of the nature of extreme anger. Try to remember how it felt sometime when you were just livid with anger toward someone. God is angrier than that right now. There are impulses inside His heart that make Him feel like tearing sinners to ribbons and pounding them down into the deepest, hottest part of hell. And those impulses have infinite force behind them.
Judgment Day is not going to be a quiet, calm, courtroom scene. Blood will be spattering. In Isa.63:3 God describes Himself on judgment day as having blood spattered all over His clothes from the people He is punishing. He describes it as being like Him taking a whip or rod and beating the sinner with many blows. (Lk.12:47) In Jeremiah 21:5 He says He will fight against sinners “in anger and fury and great wrath.”

Revelation 14:10 [the sinner] will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.

God is right now experiencing feelings of violent rage that surpass human comprehension. The most extreme anger feelings you have ever felt are zero compared to the rage that is boiling in the heart of God right now.
Why is that wrath not being poured out on the world right now? Because of God’s patience. There is mercy in this life. There is no mercy in the next life for the lost - none. People who look around at how much kindness they are receiving from God now and who figure, “I will be okay on judgment day – God will cut me a break,” those people are tragically mistaken. In fact, every moment of mercy that they experience in this life actually increases the severity of the punishment they deserve and will receive in hell.

Romans 2:4-5 do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? 5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

Picture a vast bottomless ocean of raging fire. It is the infinite anger of God multiplied times every single time you have sinned. It is a place not only of the most agonizing torture imaginable, but much worse than that - worse because the pain is being inflicted by God Himself. His face is red and His teeth are bared and His nostrils flared and nothing will ever, ever reduce the amount of anger He has toward you once you drop into that ocean. (You will not be transformed and become righteous when you go to hell, which means all the same evil inclinations and attitudes and sins in your hearts will continue forever, so if anything you will keep making God angrier and angrier.) And this ocean of fire is bottomless. You sink forever, and the deeper you sink the worse it gets, and you will never die. You will never even go unconscious. You will never pass out. You will never sleep. You will never have relief even for one second. 
Now – during this life, what is it that is keeping the unbeliever from dropping forever into that ocean of wrath? Only the hand of the very God who is so angry. The unbeliever is dangling, suspended by a slender thread over that ocean. And he looks up and sees that the only thing supporting that thread is the fingers of a God who is infuriated with rage against him. A God whom he is provoking to greater and greater anger with every sin he commits. Jonathan Edwards writes: “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. … you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.” Every wrong action or word or attitude or thought ties another fifty pounds of lead to your feet, and the thread is beginning to fray. There is absolutely no promise or obligation that would prevent God from letting go at any split second. He can and will let go. That is the predicament of every person who is guilty of sin before God.
Edwards: “Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself … that his schemes will not fail." But their delusion is just that – a delusion. They will not be able to pull any wool over the eyes of the omniscient One. They will not be able to overpower omnipotent anger and escape. They will not be able to argue their way out of justice, as though they could outsmart or out-argue infinite wisdom. There will be no debate on Judgment Day. It will be too late.
This world has a serious problem, and it is not political or environmental. It is the wrath of God. It is the inevitability of Judgment Day. Very soon He is going to let go of that thread. You can look up the statistics – the death rate is still one each – everybody dies. And after that, the judgment. And there are no second chances.
And not only is the wrath of God our greatest problem, but it is really the only problem mankind faces because if we could have God’s favor, nothing could threaten us. The only danger that exists, ultimately, is God’s wrath. And despite what many want to believe that wrath is real, and for the unforgiven sinner it is absolutely inescapable. So while the world pours all its energy into re-arranging the deck chairs on this big Titanic called the human race, we are going to look this morning at the one and only life raft that is available. And that life raft was the costliest rescue effort ever undertaken.

The Solution: Propitiation/Atonement 

2 He Himself is the propitiation for our sins

The word translated propitiation is the Greek word hilasmos. The NIV translates it “atoning sacrifice.” Some commentators have argued that it should be translated “expiation.” “Propitiation, atonement, expiation – why all the big words?” Whenever you look up a Greek word and all you get is a bunch of really obscure English words that usually means it is a word that just does not translate into our language. The Hebrew dictionary I read took 30 pages to describe the meaning of this word. So let’s see if we can sort this term out.
Home base: Wrath  Atonement  Favor
The really short answer is this – it is the solution to the problem of God’s wrath. First you are hanging there by a thread in the hands of a furiously angry God, then comes propitiation (or atonement), and now you are in the arms of a happy, loving Father. We are going to try to cover a lot of rugged theological terrain in the sermon today, and if at any point you get lost in the discussion, just remember – all I am saying in this sermon is – you start out with God really angry, then comes atonement, and now God is delighted in you. You go from dangling by the thread held by a furious Judge to resting in the mighty and tender arms of a happy, delighted Father only because of atonement. That thought is home base for this sermon – just run back to that any time you get lost.
Expiation vs. Propitiation
Okay, so let’s put on some boots and see if we can make our way up to some mountain peaks of doctrine. I want to go back to the Old Testament and show you the roots of this concept, but first, let me just define the English words propitiation and expiation. 
Propitiation: “to turn away wrath.” If someone is propitious toward you it means he is favorably disposed toward you. So for Jesus to propitiate God means to bring about a change from God being mad at you to God being favorable toward you.
Expiation: “cleansing” It just means to wash.
Some of the liberal scholars do not like to think of God as being angry, so they want to translate this word “expiation” instead of “propitiation.” (Cleansing instead of turning away anger.) But if you do not like the idea of God’s wrath then changing this word to mean “cleanse” does not really get you anywhere. Think about it – why do we need to be cleansed? The only reason we need to be cleansed is because we cannot approach God while we are defiled and contaminated. And the reason we cannot approach Him while we are defiled is because defilement is disgusting to Him. He is not favorably disposed toward the defiled, and will not allow them into His presence until they are cleansed. And so if we define the word as cleansing we are right back to the fact that God is not favorably disposed toward us and something needs to happen to make Him favorably disposed toward us. So even if you re-define the word here, there is no getting around the reality of God’s wrath.

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

So, while cleansing is a key component, propitiation gets more to the heart of the meaning of the Greek word, because it has to do with wrath. There are two problems, however, with the word “propitiation.” First, the only people who know what it means are the same people who also know what the Greek word means, so it does not do anybody any good. The whole point of translating the Greek into English is so that English speaking people can understand what it is saying. Secondly, the word propitiation does not convey anything of the rich Old Testament background behind this word. So I think the best translation of 1 John 2:2 of all the major translations is the NIV. They translate the word “atoning sacrifice.” There is no English word that fully conveys the idea, but I think the one that comes closest is the word atonement. 
Old Testament Background
If you know anything about Jewish holidays you already know the Hebrew word for atonement. The holiday that the Jews regard as their holiest day of the year is Yom Kippur. YOM is the Hebrew word for “day” and KIPPUR is the Hebrew word for atonement. So Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement. That is a holiday that God instituted way back in Lev.23.
The literal, root meaning of the word KIPPUR (or KAFAR) is “to wipe clean.” That’s the root idea, but it is used in a lot of other ways as well. Sometimes it means “to forgive.” Other times it means “to consecrate, or make holy.” Other times it refers to that which enables forgiveness – so you make atonement in order to be forgiven. Sometimes it refers to the act of offering a sacrifice. Other times it refers to the actual sacrificial animal itself. Other times it refers to the place where the animal is offered. Other times it refers to reconciliation with God – the process of turning His wrath away and gaining favor from Him. And a very common way this word is used is as a synonym for “redeem” (the purchase of someone’s freedom). When you use money to get someone out of trouble - like purchasing the freedom of a slave or criminal, or somehow causing a person to accept money in place of that person,- then you made atonement for the person.
And here is the fascinating thing about this word “atonement.” The entire sacrificial system was so engrained in the culture of the ancient Jewish people, that when this term was used – all of those meanings were in the background of their thoughts. For us that sounds like a list of possible definitions. But for them it was just one giant meaning. Each time the word was used there would be one part or another that might be emphasized more by the context, but most of the time the word atonement is used it carries most of those meanings. It is all bound up in one glorious idea. It encompasses the price that was paid for sin, the act of paying that price, and the results that come from the payment of the price.
Now, the Greek word that John uses in 1 John 2:2 (hilasmos) is a word that was used to translate the OT word atonement. And since John uses it in such a general, broad way in this verse (referring to all Christ accomplished with regard to our sin), I think it is best to take it to encompass the entire OT concept of redemption. So all the elements are involved. Because of our sin we were in bondage – we owed a debt that we could never pay. We were guilty, we were defiled and filthy, and we were alienated from God. And so with His blood shed on the cross Jesus paid our debt and purchased our freedom. He paid our penalty so that our guilt can be lifted off of us. He suffered and died in our place so we do not have to. He satisfied all of God’s requirements and demands. He made us holy. And He did all that to turn God’s wrath away from us so that we could be reconciled to Him.
Redemption
And the one aspect of all that of which we have not yet touched on was the redemption part – the purchasing part. 

Our need for redemption: triple bondage
We were in bondage in a number of ways because of our sin.
1) According to Gal.3:13 we were in bondage under the curse of the law. We were like slaves to the law in the sense that the only way we could get to heaven was by perfectly satisfying the demands of the law, which is impossible. On the cross Jesus paid a price that bought our way out of that bondage.

Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. 

So we were redeemed (purchased) out from under the bondage of lawkeeping as our means of salvation. 
2) We were on death row because of our sin. Jesus bailed us out of that.

Romans 3:23-24 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

That is what forgiveness is.

Ephesians 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins

3) The third way we were enslaved was to wickedness. We were unable to say “no” to ungodly passions. We were enslaved to the empty, worthless lifestyle of an unbeliever. And Jesus bought us out of that prison.

Titus 2:14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

1 Peter 1:18 it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ

So we were enslaved to lawkeeping as our only means of salvation, we were incarcerated on death row because of our guilt before God, and we were enslaved to the domination of sin and evil passions in our lives. And Jesus died on the cross to pay a price that would redeem us from all three.

Future Redemption
And there is more redemption to come in the future. Our flesh is still in a kind of bondage to the fallenness of this world. Even though we are not totally under the control of sin like before, still we cannot avoid sin. Because of the flesh, and evil in our hearts, we cannot live in perfect righteousness. We are enslaved to the effects of sin in our lives, enslaved to the human condition – frailty, weakness, sickness, death. The whole creation is enslaved to the effects of the curse. Metal rusts, gardens get weedy, transmissions wear out, joints become arthritic. The ground produces thistles and thorns, life is full of pain and suffering, there are earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, wars, diseases. Innocent people get unjustly imprisoned, little children are abused, wicked people prosper, everybody dies. The entire creation groans under the curse that came because of sin. And someday all that will also be redeemed. Our flesh as well as the entire creation will be set free from its bondage someday.

Luke 21:28 your redemption is drawing near.

Romans 8:21,23 the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. 
23 Not only so, but we ourselves … groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

The price
Jesus’ Death
What was the price Jesus had to pay to purchase all that? He had to drink the cup of God’s wrath. Earlier I asked you to remember a time when you were the angriest you ever remember being. Now I want you to think back to the time when someone was really angry with you – someone you loved - someone with whom you desired closeness and intimacy. And that person was furiously, violently angry with you. (And if you cannot remember a time when that happened, just imagine the person you love the most being furiously, violently angry with you.)
The sufferings of Jesus - all the whippings and beatings and physical torture was really just a tiny illustration of His real suffering. The real suffering was the wrath of God. At some point during the crucifixion – or perhaps the entire time, that angry, red face and flared nostrils of the omnipotent Judge and Executioner turned against Jesus.

Isaiah 53:10 it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer

That fiery ocean of wrath had been held back behind the dam of God’s mercy. But at the crucifixion the dam broke and every last drop of God’s eternal wrath was poured out on Jesus. And Jesus willingly drank every last drop. That cat-of-nine-tails in the hand of the Roman guard was nothing compared to the whip in God’s hand. And the Father let loose on Jesus all of His rage and fury over the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden, and over the murder of Able, and every sin ever committed and that ever would be committed. No one in hell will ever experience the punishment that Jesus endured. No one has ever loved the Father as much as Jesus did, and so estrangement from Him could never be as painful for anyone else. His angry face could never hurt anyone as much as it hurt Jesus. And the pouring out of that punishment on Jesus went on and on until Jesus screamed out with the words of the Psalmist – “My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?” If you read that psalm you see right away that it is not that David thought he was permanently forsaken by God, rather it was a cry of pain because of how long the trial was lasting. And Jesus felt the same way. The excruciating, suffocating, maddening pain and anguish of bearing the fury of His beloved Father seemed unbearable, and unending. Isa.53 says God the Father was striking Him and smiting Him and crushing Him and wounding Him and causing Him to suffer. The Father laid all our sin upon Jesus and then slaughtered Him like a lamb. And His appearance was disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness (Isa.52:14). The mighty, omnipotent, angry hand of God just kept pressing down harder and harder, and the blows from His rod became more and more unbearable. 
And then…

John 19:28-30 Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." 

And Jesus’ last words were a quotation from Ps.31:5 – 

Luke 23:46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." 

And then John says “He gave up His spirit.”
The word translated “it is finished” was tetelestai. That’s the word they would stamp on a business receipt that meant “paid in full.” The price was paid. 

Remember verse seven of chapter one?

7 But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin. 

This is how John can allow for sinful people to be in fellowship with God without violating the logic of verses five and six, which say that God can have no fellowship with darkness. Christianity is the only religion that both takes sin seriously and offers an adequate solution. 
So when Jesus breathed His last it was over. Contrary to what some teach Jesus did not go into hell after that. He fulfilled his promise to the thief on the cross and met him that same day in Paradise. And Isaiah 53:11 says that the Father looked, saw what Jesus offered, and was satisfied. 
Jesus’ Life
Was the cross enough? Was all that Jesus suffered in the crucifixion sufficient to get us to heaven? No. It was not. If all Jesus did were pay the debt we owed, all that would do is get us back to innocence. But innocence is not enough. Hell is a place of punishment for those who deserve punishment. Heaven is a place of reward for those who deserve reward. There is no place for those who are just plain innocent and do not deserve anything.
You see, to go to heaven you need a lot more than just innocence. You need righteousness – perfect righteousness. You need merit. You need to deserve eternal, infinite reward. You do not receive infinite, eternal reward just for having a clean slate. By definition reward requires some good thing that deserves reward. And so it would not have been enough for Jesus to just come and die as a spotless, sinless sacrifice. That much was crucial so His payment for sin could be credited to your account. But on top of that we need perfect goodness and perfect righteousness and perfect obedience and perfect holiness credited to our account before we can go to a place of infinite reward.

Romans 5:19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

And so those last two words of 1 John 2:1 (actually – in the Greek it is just one word that says, “Jesus Christ the righteous.”) are incredibly important. Jesus had to not only be perfectly innocent and sinless and flawless in order to be an acceptable sacrifice for our sin, but He also had to be perfectly righteous in order to credit righteousness to our account.
During His life on earth Jesus Christ never once committed any kind of sin in thought, word, deed, attitude or any other way. He never loved something He should not have loved. He never had a single sinful thought. He never once spoke a word that He should not have spoken. Even as a child or teenager, never once did He have an attitude that was not exactly what it should be. He never once did anything that fell short of the glory of God. He never sinned. But that is only half the story. The other half is He always acted with perfect righteousness. He always loved perfectly. There was never a moment when He should have done something and did not. And on top of all that, every good thing He ever did was as good as it could possibly be. He never did something good that He should have done better. He never had a little bit of desire for something good when He should have had a lot of desire. He never had a little bit of zeal when He should have had a lot, or a little bit of disgust toward sin when He should have had a lot. He never took one step in a wrong direction, never missed God’s guidance because of blindness. Everything He ever did was as good as it could be.
Wouldn’t you love to have a record like that? You do! (if you are truly a Christian). To go to the place of eternal reward when you die you have to have a righteousness that deserves eternal reward, and the only way for that to happen is for it to be an alien righteousness that is credited to your account. In Php.3 Paul lists all his own qualifications and efforts toward righteousness as a non-Christian (which were really quite impressive compared to most people), and then says, “I consider all that garbage now. Not only is it not in my asset column anymore, but it is in my loss column. The most righteous things I have ever done were tainted with sin, and so they count against me.”

Philippians 3:8-9 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

And Jesus Christ purchased that for you with both His death and His perfect life of obedience. 
What Jesus purchased
So in the atonement Jesus purchased a lot more than just your pardon. He did purchase that, but He also purchased righteousness for you. He bought you out of the slavery of sin. He purchased your full salvation and the entire inheritance that comes with it. And He paid your way into the very household of God, so you could be adopted as a daughter or son.

The extent: Universal
The Problem: Universal salvation? 
Take a look again at verse two. That last phrase in that verse - Jesus became the atonement for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. That is a phrase that has caused a whole lot of confusion and theological debate. (See appendix) 
We have already established that when John says, “us” in this section he is talking about Christians, so when he says that Jesus is the atonement – the propitiation for not only our sins but also those of the whole world, what on earth does that mean? It is obvious from the rest of the book that John is not trying to teach that all people are saved. Not all people are forgiven, not all people are cleansed, not all people are reconciled to God, not all people are freed from bondage to the law and sin and condemnation.
Solution: Universal Savior 
So how are we going to solve this problem? The short answer is this: You were not forgiven or cleansed or saved or reconciled when Jesus died on the cross.

Hebrews 9:11-14 When Christ came as high priest … he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.

So Jesus obtained redemption in order that He might cleanse us, but the cleansing does not happen until the moment you place your faith in Jesus Christ and His payment is credited to your account.
Whatever you do, do not try to solve the difficulty by re-defining the term “world.” So there is no reason to do any gymnastics with the words “us” and “world.” Let world mean world. We do not want to destroy John’s emphasis on the universal aspect of Jesus’ atonement. That is a crucially important theme – especially in John.

John 1:9 The true light, who gives light to all men.

29 Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

3:16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that whoever who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

17 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

4:42 this really is the Savior of the world.

6:33 the One who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

 51The bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."

8:12 Then Jesus spoke to them again: "I am the light of the world. 

12:47 I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.

1 John 4:14 the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

When He died on the cross He became the Savior of the whole world. That does not mean every person in the world is saved – it means Jesus is everyone’s Savior. No person anywhere in the world has any other Savior besides Jesus. Jesus died for the whole, wide world so that He could legitimately offer real salvation to every last soul in this world. He is the life raft for the entire Titanic (which is fine, because He is bigger than 1000 Titanics).

1 Timothy 4:10 God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

He is their Savior in the sense that He has provided for their redemption and is offering it to them, and is the means by which they can be saved, and He is especially our Savior because all of that has been applied to our account.

1 Timothy 2:1-6 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone…3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all men

Jesus purchased the right to make a real, legitimate offer of salvation to every last human being on the earth. His death on the cross enabled Him to be able to say to all of humanity – whosoever will may come! The provision is for everyone. That is why God can legitimately tell sinners that their doom is unnecessary. 

Ezekiel 18:30-32 Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. 31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? 32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!

When God asks them, “Why will you die?” the answer is not, “Because nobody died for my sin.” When God says, “Why will you die? I want you to live” the point is their dying is unnecessary. It is unnecessary because Jesus paid the price for the whole world.
When were your sins actually paid for? Some passages about redemption seem to point to the cross; others seem to point to the day of conversion. On the cross Jesus purchased the right to be the Savior of everybody, including you and me. But when was the payment of that price credited to my account? 2000 years ago? Was I forgiven and cleansed and set free and reconciled to God 2000 years ago? No. None of that happenes until I become a Christian. Jesus made the purchase 2000 years ago, but what was purchased is not applied to anyone’s account until that person places his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And until His death is credited to your account you remain responsible for your own sin, you bear all your own guilt, and the wrath of God remains on you.
Salvation a matter of righteousness
Remember back in verse eight of chapter one where it says that if we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us? Now that the price has been paid, once we come to Jesus Christ in true repentance so that His righteousness is credited to our account and our sin is credited to His account, the result is that our salvation becomes a matter of justice. Salvation is not just a matter of mercy. It is a matter of justice. It would actually be unjust for God not to forgive you if Jesus’ payment is credited to your account.

Today is the day of salvation!
Maybe you are realizing that you are still dangling over hell by that thread held by the fingers of a God who is incensed with you, and you are becoming more provoked with every sin you commit. You are literally a heartbeat away from eternity in hell. Why will you die? Why plunge forever into the fiery wrath of God? It is not necessary. Jesus bore that wrath for you already. He faced the fury and angry rage on the face of the Father, and did what you could not do even with an eternity in the hottest hell – He drank the cup of God’s wrath dry – every last drop. And when He had done that He said “It is finished – paid in full,” and then He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” and then He went immediately into paradise and was welcomed by the Father with the greatest, tightest, most emotion-filled Father-Son embrace that has ever taken place. And He now has infinite favor with God, and everyone who is in Him has that exact same favor with God. The moment you entrust your life to Christ the God who was about to let go of your thread takes His other massive hand and puts it under you. And no one can pluck you out of that great hand if you are in Christ.
You have an extraordinary opportunity now. This is a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands there calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners – “Why will you die?” This day will not last forever. Seize upon it while it is still here. You say, “How do I know if I have God’s favor or if I am still hanging by the thread over hell?” Just read verse three. You know that you have come to know Him if you obey His commands. Bow the knee to Christ in faith. Submit to Him as your Lord and God and Owner and Master. And trust Him as your atonement – your only Savior and Redeemer and Righteousness-giver. And you will live with Him forever.

Benediction: Heb.10:19-22 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.

Appendix: Argument for Unlimited Atonement 

Some have tried to solve it by making the phrase “the whole world” here refer only to the tiny minority of people who will eventually become Christians. So they say, “What John is really saying here is that Jesus is our atonement, and not just for us locals, but also for people all over the place. It does not mean every person – it just means certain, select, representative individuals from all the various regions around the world.” That solution creates more problems than it solves. Are we going to make “us” mean “us locals” all the way through this passage – or just here in this one verse? You see, there is nothing in the context that would call for a sudden, drastic change in the referent of the word “us.” 

And on top of that, John’s normal use of the term “world” in this book is to refer either to the general system of evil in this world, or to unbelieving humanity – or both.

1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world-- the lusts of the flesh, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of life -- comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its lusts pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

1 John 3:1 … The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

1 John 3:13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.

1 John 4:3 every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.

1 John 5:4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

1 John 5:19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

If someone came to you and tried to argue that 1 John 5:19 does not refer to all unbelievers, and they said, “Only certain, select, representative individuals from each region are under the control of the evil one,” what would you say? My guess is you would say, “No, John is clearly referring to all of unbelieving humanity. He does not just say “the world” but “the whole world.” There is only one other place where John uses that phrase – “the whole world,” and it is right here in 2:2. 

That is by far and away the most common way John uses the term “world” in this epistle. And he uses it that same way very often in his gospel as well. 

So if we take the term “world” in the normal way John tends to use it, and we stay consistent in our interpretation of who the “we” is referring to, there is really no way around the fact that John is calling Jesus the atonement, or propitiation, of not only believers but also all the unbelievers all around the world.
And yet they are still lost. How do we explain that? Our five point Calvinist friends would tell us that if Jesus died for you, paid the price for your sin, purchased cleansing and reconciliation and redemption - how could all that be true and you still be lost?

Answer: What Jesus purchased is not credited until faith
The answer is actually fairly straightforward. If you try to make the phrase “the whole world” refer only to the elect here – that does not even solve the problem. Here’s why: Raise your hand if you are one of the elect. Okay, now raise your hand if Jesus died for you. Raise your hand if Jesus purchased redemption and cleansing and forgiveness and reconciliation and salvation for you. Now let’s think through this question (don’t raise your hands here) – how many people in this room were redeemed and cleansed and forgiven and set free and saved and reconciled to God 2000 years ago? None. You say, “Are you sure about that Darrell? Maybe God looked down the corridors of time, saw that you were going to become a Christian, and so even way back at the cross, 2000 years ago, He applied Jesus’ blood to your account. Could that be?” No – let me show you why. Turn to Ephesians two. In Eph.2:3 Paul describes to us exactly what the condition of the elect is prior to conversion.

Ephesians 2:3-5 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-- it is by grace you have been saved

Paul is talking about people who have been made alive in Christ and saved by grace. No question these are the elect. And yet, prior to their conversion, Paul says they were dead in transgressions and by nature objects of God’s wrath. If their sin was paid for on the cross, what is God so wrathful about? If their transgressions were removed and separated from them by the atonement, how is it that those transgressions caused them to be spiritually dead?

Some of our Calvinist friends would say that if Jesus died for the whole world, and yet non-Christians have to go to hell for their sin – that is double jeopardy. The sin is being paid for twice. But if that is a problem it would be a problem for the elect too, because before you were saved God’s wrath was upon you because of your sin – even though Jesus died for you. You see, it is not double jepordy for someone for whom Christ died to suffer the wrath of God for his sin, because the payment of Christ on the cross is not applied until you believe and give your heart to Jesus Christ. That is how it is for the elect, and that is how it is for the non-elect. 

You see, if it is a problem that Jesus could die for someone and God would still hold that person responsible for his transgressions and have wrath against that person because of his sin - if that is a problem, then the problem is not solved by making Jesus’ death apply only to the people who would eventually be saved, because you still have the problem of those people being utterly lost, under God’s wrath, suffering the effect of their sin (spiritual deadness), and on their way to hell prior to becoming Christians. Human logic says, “If God knows that you are eventually going to be saved, and that you are for sure going to end up in heaven when you die, then your lostness prior to conversion is only an apparent lostness. From an earthly standpoint it seems like you are on your way to hell, but you really are not. That is bogus logic. Prior to my conversion I was just as lost as anyone else and I really, truly was en-route to hell. I am one of the elect. I know that because I am a believer right now. So both sides would agree that Jesus died for me and paid for my sins on the cross. However even though I am one of the elect and Jesus died for me there was a time when I was by nature an object of God’s wrath. Therefore, Jesus dying for your sins, apart from faith, does not save you. Jesus dying for your sins plus unbelief on your part equals full guilt and culpability for your sin before God. That is not double jeopardy. It is not injustice. It is what the Bible teaches. We must never let our logical reasoning overturn the direct statements of Scripture.
So, there is no biblical problem with a person for whom Christ died going to hell. The cross did not automatically make anyone right with God. Faith is required. Jesus purchased the pardon of sinners, but that is not applied by some law of nature all by itself. It is applied only personally, when Jesus Christ comes before the Father’s face in heaven and offers what He purchased to the Father on behalf of that person.

Another argument some of our Reformed brothers have adduced to explain passages like 1 John 2:2 is to say that Jesus died for the world only in the sense that He paid the price for common grace for them. So that the sun could rise on the righteous and the wicked, etc. But first of all, I don’t know of any passage in Scripture that connects Jesus’ death with common grace. The fact that God is postponing judgment for the wicked does not require a substitutionary atonement. Secondly, the language about the atonement applying to the whole world is too strong to be limited to common grace. Here in 1 John 2:2 it talks about atonement – the provision for the turning away of God’s wrath and cleansing and forgiveness and reconciliation. Not just sunshine and rain.

1 Timothy 4:10 God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe.

Just providing them sunshine and rain for a brief time before they are cast into eternal hell is hardly enough to make Him their Savior. He is their Savior in the sense that He has provided for their redemption and is offering it to them, and is the means by which they can be saved, and He is especially our Savior because all of that has been applied to us.

Knowing God & Loving People Part 1 Knowing and Obeying 2:3-4

Summary: Knowledge of God is much more than mere accurate information about God, however it does require accurate information about God. It also involves believing and delighting in that information, and it is the mark of a Christian. Verse 4 – all knowers are obeyers (cannot separate knowledge and ethics). It works that way because due to God’s nature, happiness is holiness – obedience is always better. Verse 3 – All obeyers are knowers (if you love people out of love for Christ you can have assurance, which God wants you to have). 

Knowledge of God
It involves the intellect
The Relational part
Believing
Love
Rare in the OT – promised in the New Covenant
Most important thing
Knowledge of God as a standing
The relationship between knowing and obeying
Verse 4 All knowers are obeyers
The necessary connection between knowledge and ethical behavior
You’ll always be happier if you obey
Obedience is a function of how you view your master
Holiness is happiness
Obey how much?
Verse 3 obeyers are knowers
Not the same as v.4
Seems like some non-knowers are obeyers
The commands are faith and love
Purpose: Assurance
Must be love for brothers because of Christ

1 John 2:3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. 4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," without keeping His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected. 

Knowledge of God

1 John 2:3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him

The word translated “sure” is the word “to know.” We see the word “know” (ginosko or oida) forty times in this tiny little epistle. This book is all about knowing – knowing God and knowing for sure that you know God.
The false teachers John is writing against are in the movement that later became known as Gnosticism. The term “gnostic” comes from the Greek word for knowledge (gnosis). They were all about knowing truth. They taught that the way to know truth is through a special enlightenment that gives you access to secret knowledge. And only through that can a select few find access to God. So John is writing against the knowledge snobs. He is going to show us the truth about knowledge. 
Throughout this book John speaks frequently about the personal interaction believers have with God. John makes it clear that Christianity is not about merely adhering to a religion or set of beliefs, or attending church, or signing on with some group. It is a kind of relationship with God in which you have certain kinds of experiences with Him. And John describes those experiences with various terms. In chapter one he called it fellowship with God. Now he calls it knowing God. And in this same paragraph he will call it being in God and remaining in God. Each of those descriptions has its purpose. We studied the significance of the term “fellowship with God” in detail in chapter one. But here John switches to the concept of knowing God. Essentially it refers to the same thing – the relationship believers have with God. But the word “knowing” highlights a different aspect of that relationship, and if you know anything about the word “know” in the Bible you understand that it refers to a very close, personal relationship. That is why it is used to refer to marital relations – it is an intimate, relational knowing. 
It involves the intellect
So it refers to much more than intellectual awareness of facts. Information is crucial. However, let me hasten to point out that it does include the intellect. It is much more than awareness of information, but it is certainly not less than awareness of information. I have to say that because in our day there is a downplaying of the importance of theology. Theology is the study of God. And any time the Church comes to a point of thinking the study of God is not important that is a very bad thing. When people say, “I do not want to get into a lot of theology and doctrine and academic study – I just want to focus on relationships,” that spells disaster for the Church.
You cannot worship a God you do not know anything about. If you worship a god who has a different set of characteristics from the one in the Bible, that is a false god. There are some very prominent Evangelical leaders today who are saying Christians and Muslims worship the same God, because both religions believe in only one God. That is like someone who says, “I believe our country has one president, and I support that president.” And another person says the same thing, except the first person believes our president is George Bush, and the second one believes it is Al Gore. Allah is not the same person as Yahweh. And that is obvious from comparing their characteristics. But you cannot do that if you do not know truth about God. Ignorance about theology will result in worshipping a false god.
There are a lot of people claiming to be Christians who worship a god who sometimes makes mistakes. There are some who worship a Jesus who is a created being. There are some who worship a god who is not just and who will never punish sinners. There are some who worship a god who is not powerful enough to prevent evil from happening. There are some who worship a god who does not know the future. There are some who worship a god who is governed by man’s free will, and who is not free to act as he pleases. And now evidently there are some who worship a god who is no different from the god of the Koran. None of those are the God of the Bible. To know God you have to have some understanding of the doctrines of God’s perfection, eternality, triune nature, justice, wrath, omnipotence, omniscience, and sovereignty. And if you are ignorant of any of those doctrines you will be susceptible to error that can lead to worshipping a false god. So information is crucial.
The Relational part
But by itself information is not enough. You could have every verse in the Bible memorized and still not know God. The purpose of information about God is always to get you to intimacy with God. Think of the information as being like a seed. If you just put it on the sidewalk, nothing will come of it. But if you add two ingredients – soil and water, it will sprout forth in life. Information is like the seed, and the two ingredients that bring life to it are faith and love. Those are the water and soil that combine with the seed to bring forth life. For each piece of information you have about God you must believe it and delight in it.

Believing
And when I say “believe” I am talking about more than just an intellectual assent. You know how sometimes you can know in your mind that something is true, but something deeper inside you does not seem to believe it? For example, have you ever been in a situation that you knew was safe, and yet you were shaking in fear? Or you know in your brain that God is going to take care of you and yet you cannot sleep because of worry? Or you know your sins are forgiven, yet guilt just never lets go?
It’s pretty obvious that there is a level of believing that runs a lot deeper than the mind. It is a part of you that very often can only be convinced through experience. But faith takes shape when each fact you learn about God becomes something you are fully convinced of right down to the very core of your being. That is the believing part.

Love
The other part is the delighting part. Loving God means taking delight in the things that are true about Him. And that is not a mere intellectual exercise. It happens when you experience God’s attributes, and enjoy the experience.
Think of someone in this church whom you love. He or she is just a terrific person, and there is something about that person that has caused feelings of great delight in your soul. Think of why that happened. Maybe it is the person’s kindness.
But you could be given irrefutable proof of the kindness of some person you have never heard of, and it would not cause those feelings of love in your heart that you have toward that person whose kindness you have actually experienced and enjoyed. The reason you have those feelings of love and delight is not just because your soul is convinced that some wonderful things are true about the person. It is because you have personally experienced those wonderful things, and you found the experience to be delightful. That is what it means to know that person. Knowing God involves being aware of the truth about Him, being fully convinced of that truth, and taking delight in your experiences of those attributes. 
Rare in the OT – promised in the New Covenant 
In the OT it is fairly rare to hear about someone knowing God. It is not at all rare, however, to read about the prophets accusing the people of failure to know God, and announcing that someday they will know God.

Jeremiah 4:22 "My people are fools; they do not know me.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 “The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers … 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest" 
Most important thing
And that is a fantastic promise, because nothing is more important than the knowledge of God.

Hosea 6:6 For I desire loyalty and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me

So let’s take a look at what John says about knowing God in this passage.
The difference between the saved and the lost
1 John 2:3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. 

You see that phrase “come to know”? It points to the ongoing results of a past action. You came to know God the day you became a Christian. Knowing God or not knowing God is a matter of being saved or being lost. All Christians know God, and no non-Christians know God.
However, just as we found when we studied about fellowship with God in chapter one, there are varying levels of knowledge of God among believers. That is why Paul prays for Christians who already know God to know Him better.

Ephesians 1:17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

So if you are a Christian, you know God, which means you will obey Him. And as a Christian the more you increase in your knowledge of God the more you will obey Him.

The relationship between knowing and obeying

Why is that? How does it work? To answer that question, we need insight into the exact relationship between knowing and obeying. And John’s main concern in verses three to five is to show us that relationship.

1 John 2:3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. 4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," without keeping His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected. 

At first glance it sounds like he repeats the same idea three times. But John is not just repeating a single idea, and what he is saying is actually quite complex.
Verse 4 All knowers are obeyers 
What you think he is saying in all three verses he is actually saying in verse four, so let’s start there.

4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," without keeping His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 

What is the relationship between knowing and obeying in verse four? The relationship is this – all knowers are obeyers. Anyone who claims to know Him but who does not obey is a liar. That means all true knowers of God obey – no exceptions. Every single person who knows God obeys Him. You cannot separate knowledge from ethics.

The necessary connection between knowledge and ethical behavior
The Gnostic opponents John is writing against were people who elevated knowledge to be the highest goal. They were really big on abstract speculations about truth. But they did not see any essential connection between knowledge of God and ethical behavior. So you had people who were claiming to have ascended to the peaks of knowledge but who did not love their neighbor at all.
And we see that same disconnect in the knowledge-worshippers of our day. One modern form of this same error is what I call scientism – the worship of science. People in our culture think truth is all bound up in what we can figure out through the scientific method. You can tell just by watching the news that our culture thinks the only reliable source of truth is science. When they need to prove something beyond a shadow of a doubt they will always quote a scientist. You do not see them doing that with pastors or theologians. They might invite a pastor onto their news program to get an opinion, but never to make an authoritative pronouncement on anything. For that they look to the scientist. And if a scientist says it, it is gospel – especially if there is a consensus among scientists. 
And so you have a group of people that our culture looks to as the most reliable sources of truth, and for the most part this group of people (the scientists) see no connection at all between knowledge and ethics. (Obviously there are exceptions, but for the most part they imagine that ethics are a matter of opinion only, and have nothing to do with truth.)
And on top of that we have a political system that is moving more and more toward thinking that we need to not only have a separation of church and state, but also a separation from morality and truth. And so we have this education system that thinks we can provide an education completely devoid of anything having to do with God or morality. 
“But isn’t it true that 2+2=4, and Columbus sailed in 1492, and water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, and independent clauses can be joined by a semicolon?” Aren’t all those truths? No - they are half-truths. And half-truths can be some of the most deceitful of all lies. There is a report that a well-known pastor in this area was involved in a long-term affair with the church organist. That rumor turned out to be true – however that organist was (and is still) his wife. You see, making a true statement without giving the fuller context can be the worst kind of lie. Saying that he was sleeping with the organist, without giving the context that they were married, implied something that was not true.
How would you feel if they reported on the news that you inflicted severe bruises on your little toddler son and dislocated his arm? And that much was true. But what they did not report was that it happened when a drunk driver sped through your front yard and you saved your son’s life by pulling him to safety? Half truths are lies.
And that is what naturalistic scientists do. And that is what the public education system does. The truths that science uncovers, and the facts about math and language and history and art all have their significance in the context of God’s purposes. And outside of that context they are devoid of their primary significance. And if you teach them in a way that implies otherwise you are lying, which means you are not teaching the truth. If you tell me all about the massive size of the Milky Way, but you leave out the part about the fact that the One who made it and who sustains it and holds it in His hand is the one who owns me and to whom I am answerable, then you are a big time liar.
Another kind of knowledge worshipper is the one who seeks truth through philosophy. There is a book by Paul Johnson called “The Intellectuals,” in which he describes the lives of those who shaped the Western world. And as you read about the great philosophers you read about some of the most immoral, gross, wicked lives imaginable. Their “truth” was devoid of ethical content. Some of those men saw themselves as the ascended intellectuals who have risen above all the common people, and yet their lives would make a black mark on a piece of coal.
Imagine the greatest composer who ever lived was falsely imprisoned and separated from his family and he wanted to express his love to his children. So in prison he writes a symphony for them. And suppose the mother presents it to the children as nothing but a piece of music. No mention of the father or his reason for writing it is mentioned – she just gives the kids an analysis of the harmonies, key signature, melody line, dynamics, etc. That woman is a liar.
Any presentation of truth that leaves the impression that there are no moral implications is a half-truth. You cannot separate truth from morality. Where there is true knowledge there is holiness. And where there is unholiness there is a lack of knowledge.

Hosea 4:1-2 … There is no truth, no faithful love, and no knowledge of God in the land! 2 Cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.

Where you do not have knowledge of God you get cursing and lying and murder and stealing and adultery and violence. But where you have true knowledge of God, you not only have holiness, but everything becomes what it is supposed to be.

Isaiah 11:6-9 The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fatling will be together, and a child will lead them. 7 The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox. 8 An infant will play beside the cobra's pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake's den. 9 No one will harm or destroy on My entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the LORD as the sea is filled with water. 

So if you want to decrease sin in your life, and increase godliness in your life, it will come only when you increase in your knowledge of God.

Colossians 1:9-10 We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, 10 so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God.

You will always be happier if you obey
So how does that work? How is it that knowing is so absolutely certain to bring about obedience? It is because of the nature of God. You have all heard the saying, “To know him is to love him.” Think about what that saying means. When you say that about someone it means the person is so delightful that if you do not love him the only possible explanation is that you do not know him. He is such a great guy that it is guaranteed that if you know him, you will love him.
This is a similar statement. Except instead of saying “To know Christ is to love Him” he says, “To know Him is to obey Him.” Why? What is it about Jesus Christ that if you know Him you will for sure obey Him?
To answer that let’s ask this – why do people disobey? Whenever you do something other than what you are told to do it is for one reason and one reason only. It is because you think you will be happier if you do something else. If someone tells you to go somewhere and you do not go, it is because you think you will be happier not going. If someone serves you some dessert and you decline it because you are on a diet, you do that because you believe that the weight loss will make you happier than the dessert. If your teacher tells you to get an assignment turned in by Friday and instead you decide to lie on your bed and listen to music, you do that because you think that will make you happier than getting the assignment in.
But what if every time that teacher told you to turn something in, if you got it in on time, he always gave you $1000? If you had a teacher like that and someone at your school said, “I have an assignment due in that guy’s class, but I am going to blow it off,” what would you say? You would say, “You don’t know that teacher. Trust me – if you knew him, you would turn that assignment in.” You see, when you know how powerful Jesus Christ is, and how generous He is with reward, and how faithful He is and how kind He is and how much delight He takes in obedience, once you know all that you will prefer obedience to Him over any other option. That is why everyone who really knows Him obeys Him.
And it is true from the negative side as well. If there were a powerful, mighty king who gave rich rewards to anyone who served him, but who also gave severe punishments to anyone who defied him, and you had some friends who were being influenced by some rebels, you might write them a letter that said, “If anyone decides to join the rebellion – he just doesn’t know this king. Believe me - if you saw the severity of punishment that he metes out on rebels you wouldn’t dream of rebelling. If you are thinking about defying this king, you just don’t know what he’s like.”
God is both a generous, loving Father and a fierce, terrifying, powerful king. And if you obey Him it is absolutely guaranteed that He will make it worth your while, and if you defy Him it is absolutely guaranteed that you will regret it. And if you doubt either one of those… you just do not know Him.

Obedience is a function of how you view your master
Obedience and disobedience is always a function of how you view the one in authority over you. That is not the only factor, but it is the primary factor. In the parable of the talents the master asked the disobedient servant, “Why didn’t you obey?”

Matthew 25:24 "Master, he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man … 25 So I was afraid.”
30 And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Why did the servant disobey? He disobeyed because he thought the master was hard on people who invest money and make a mistake and suffer a loss. And so he did not want to take any chances at all. And beyond that, his beliefs about this master drove him to disobedience because it caused him to resent his master. It is obvious this servant did not even care about his master’s affairs or his estate, because if he cared at all he could have just put the money in the bank. That way there is no risk. But this servant did not do that because he did not care about gaining any profit for his master. His beliefs about what his master was what drove him to resentment and disobedience.
The servant was wrong about the master. The master was not hard on servants who try and fail. But he was hard on servants who disobeyed. And he was incredibly generous to those who obeyed. Obedience or disobedience comes from what you believe about your Master.
Holiness is happiness
And if you know the truth about our Master then you understand that holiness is happiness. And unholiness is unhappiness. 

Psalm 119:1-2 Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. 2 Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.

Blessedness comes through righteousness, but “the way of the wicked is hard” (Pr.13:15). No one is better off than the one who loves and obeys the commands of the Lord. 
And that is because God’s commands are not like any other commands or rules or laws. The laws of our government are for the public good and may or may not be in your personal best interests in a particular instance. The rules at your workplace or school sometimes benefit you and other times do not. But God’s laws are nothing but paths to blessedness – every one of them, all the time, in every context. They are all Doctor’s prescriptions for wellness and health. There is never a time when God asks you to do something other than what is in your ultimate best interest. When you believe that, and your soul is fully convinced of that, then when the enemy tries to deceive you with his lies and tells you, “Hey, this sin will be more satisfying than obedience to God’s law will be,” that lie will find no place to take hold in your soul.
So whenever you fall into sin remind yourself of this. Preach to your soul and say, “Soul, if you knew more about what God is like, and if you had had more experiences of what it is like to be in His presence, you would have preferred fellowship with God over the pleasure of that sin.” Take a moment right now and ask yourself, “Which commands does my soul have the hardest time believing will lead to greater happiness than the sin they forbid? And based on the answer to that question, in what ways do you need to know God more? (That would be a good topic of conversation for a family devotions, or over lunch today.)

Obey how much?
So, the main point of verse four is that all knowers are obeyers, which means if you do not obey you do not know God. So how do we make that fit with chapter one? In chapter one John made such a big point about the fact that everybody sins. Nobody obeys perfectly, and those who claim they do are sinning by making that claim. The reason John starts the book with all that, is so we do not misunderstand the rest of the book when he says things like what he says in this verse. He does not want you to think that he is saying you have to obey perfectly or you do not know God.
So when John says that everyone who knows God obeys God he is saying there is a kind of obedience that is possible only through knowing God, and yet it is an imperfect obedience. If you follow the process of chapter one with regard to sin (repent and come back into the light when you sin) then you are still in the category of those who keep His commands – even though you constantly fail.
So once again I have to disagree with those folks who say, “The difference between a believer and an unbeliever is the unbeliever is characterized by sin and the believer just sins once in a while.” No. The difference is not how many times you sin – it is whether you walk in the light or in the darkness. And whether the highest resolve of your life is obedience to Christ or not. The person who truly knows God has an overall attitude that says, “My goal in life is to obey God. If I had one wish it would be that I would never disobey God.” However the degree to which you succeed in obeying Him will depend upon your level of knowledge of God. As that knowledge of God increases so will your obedience. The more experiences you have of the attributes and presence of God the more you will obey Him.
Verse three: Obeyers are knowers
Not the same as verse four
OK, now that we understand verse four let’s back up and take a close look at verse three.

3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands.

That is not the same thing he says in verse four. Verse three is saying that if you keep His commands – if you obey Him – then that proves for sure that you know Him, which means there is no such thing as a person who obeys Him but who does not know Him. In other words, all obeyers are knowers of God. Can you see that? Can you see that verse three rules out any possibility that a person could obey God and not know Him? The point of verse four is that all knowers are obeyers. But the point of verse three is that all obeyers are knowers. 
Those two statements are not saying the same thing at all. If I say, “All bachelors are men,” that is not the same thing as saying “All men are bachelors.” If a business owner said, “Everyone who works for me loves me,” that is not the same thing as saying, “Everyone who loves me also works for me.”

Seems like some non-knowers are obeyers
So let’s look at the relationship between knowing and obeying in verse three. All obeyers are knowers. How can that be? What about those people who are not saved, but who read the Bible and try their hardest to do what it says? They do not commit adultery because the seventh commandment says not to. They do their best to be kind and to be honest and not to hurt others because they know that is what God commands. If you do something good because God says to is that not obedience? 

The commands are faith and love
To get to the bottom of what John is saying here we need to understand what he means by obeying the commands. What commands does he have in mind? That is actually a fairly easy question to answer. John answers it for us in verse seven.

1 John 2:7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command, but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the message you have heard.

That is a reference to the gospel. The command is the Gospel. And if you want that spelled out more specifically, take a look at 3:23.

1 John 3:23 Now this is His command: that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as He commanded us.

The command is to have faith in Christ and to love. And there are no people who do that who do not know God, because that is the way to know God – through faith. And inseparably bound up with faith is love for God and love for your neighbor. Every time John refers to God’s commands in this book love is always there in the context.

2:8-9 I am writing you a new command, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9 The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother is in the darkness 

4:21 And we have this command from Him: the one who loves God must also love his brother.

5:3 For this is what love for God is: to keep His commands. Now His commands are not a burden

2 John 1:5 So now I urge you, lady-- not as if I were writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning-- that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: you must walk in love.

The word “command” appears 18 times in 1 & 2 John – every one in the context of love. God’s command to us is that we love Him and love others with His love. And that love is the love of faith. When you have a relationship with God in which He makes promises and you trust in and rely on those promises, and entrust your life to Him, that is a relationship that springs forth in love for God and for others. Later we will talk about why love for people is such a central mark of a genuine relationship with God. But for now just understand that when John talks about obeying God’s commands he has primary reference to the gospel. So the reason all obeyers of the commands are knowers of God is because the command is to have faith and to love – and that is what knowing God is all about.

Purpose: Assurance
So why does John have to make a point of the fact that there are no obeyers who are not knowers? He does this so that you can have assurance of your salvation. The purpose of verse four is to show the phonies that they are lost. And the purpose of verse three is to show the true knowers of God that they are indeed saved. It is important not only to be saved, but to know with certainty that you are saved. There are some people who say, “You can’t know for sure if you are elect until you persevere all the way to the end.” So for them there is no assurance until the end of your life. But John says you can know for sure, and God wants you to know for sure. That is one reason why John wrote this book.

1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

We are so prone to fixate on the message of verse four and pass right over verse three. We are so ready to whip out verse four whenever we sin and question our salvation. And to a degree that is a good thing. The farther you go into unrepentant sin the more applicable the warning of verse four becomes. So it is good to keep verse four in mind. My question is why don’t we ever keep verse three in mind when we trust God and love His children? Why don’t you ever look at your faith and your love and say, “Man, this just blows my doubts right out of the water”? “I have to be a knower of God – otherwise there is no explanation for this faith and love in my heart.”

Must be love for brothers because of Christ
Now, maybe you are sitting there thinking, “The reason I don’t think that way is because every religious person thinks he has faith and love in his heart.” And that is true. Having an affection for people and thinking that you are a person of faith is pretty easy for a non-Christian to do. So how is it that those are proofs of true salvation? They aren’t. Love is not Christian love unless you love the person because of your love for Christ. Remember the sheep and goat judgment in Mt.25? You will be rewarded with heaven if and only if you showed kindness to whom? – to those whom Jesus calls His brothers. And the motive He gives us is to do so because in doing so we are showing kindness to Christ himself. (“If you have done it to the least of these brothers of mine you have done it to me.”)

Matthew 10:42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

People in the world might do lots of nice things. But they do not do them as an expression of their love for the Lord Jesus Christ, which means they do not qualify as being obedient to Him. So when you find your heart taking delight in a person simply because that person loves the Lord – that is proof of your salvation. Rejoice in that! Make much of that! Mark it whenever it happens and write it down if you have to. God wants those who truly know Him to know that they know Him. So love us. And love us because you love Him. And then rejoice in the proof that you are a true knower of God.

Benediction: 1 Co.1:4-9 I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 for in him you have been enriched in every way--in all your speaking and in all your knowledge--6 because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. 7 therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 he will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

Knowing God & Loving People Part 2 The Life of a True Christian 2:3-6

Summary: Three aspects of knowing God: 1) Keeping (guarding, treasuring, not taking your eye off) His commands; 2) Loving God (the accomplishment of love is obedience); 3) and Remaining (the closest imaginable kind of relationship) . God’s law is a precious gift. Pray for help, slow down, read personally, and focus on the Psalms. 

Review
I. Keeping
The meaning of “keeping” (persevering and treasuring)
Grace is not opposed to obedience
Treasuring God’s Word
II. Loving
The link between knowing and doing
The Accomplishment of the Love of God
Our love for God
Made complete
III. Remaining
Conclusion
The purpose of God’s law (for us)
If you don’t love the Word – question your salvation
Keep the Word!
1) Pray for help
S is for Seek
I is for Incline.
O is for Open.
U is for Unite.
S is for Satisfy.
2) SLOW DOWN!
3) Read expectantly
4) Read personally
4) Read the Psalms
Devotionals

3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. 4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," without keeping His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected. This is how we know we are in Him. 6 the one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked. 
 
Review
After a four-week reprieve it is time for us to return to our study of 1 John. We left off last time right in the middle of a paragraph, so let me refresh your memory from a month ago.

3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. 4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," without keeping His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

We saw that the point of verse three is that all obeyers of God are knowers of God. That is where our assurance comes. If you are questioning your salvation, you check to see if you are an obeyer of God. And if you are, then that is proof that you are a knower of God because all obeyers are knowers. And so the proof of your salvation is obedience – chapter one type obedience. “What is chapter one type obedience?” That is when you constantly sin and constantly keep responding to your sin in true repentance. It is when you can never say, “I am without sin,” but you keep walking in the light by confessing your sin and turning wholeheartedly back to God.
So verse three says that the proof of salvation is in a life of chapter one-type obedience. Then in verse four he makes another point. Not only is it true that all who obey God know God, but it is also true the other way – everyone who knows God obeys God. Not only are all obeyers knowers, but all knowers are also obeyers. The implication of verse three is that we can have great assurance if we obey God. The implication of verse four is that it is impossible to divorce knowledge from ethics.
So many people today believe that knowledge has nothing to do with behavior. They think education and intelligence has nothing to do with purity and holiness. And John says they are wrong. I do not care if you have ten PhD’s stacked up behind your name; if you do not have a righteous life you do not know anything. You may have gathered a whole lot of facts, but if you do not understand how those facts relate to God, then you do not know the truth about anything. But if you do know how they relate to God, that will have an impact on the way you life your life.
That is a summary of the last sermon (vv.3-4). But there is a whole lot more to this passage that we did not have time to get in to last time. John is going to show us three key aspects of knowing God.

I. Keeping
The meaning of “keeping” (persevering and treasuring) 
First, I need to show you some more of the significance of this word that the NIV translates “obey,” and it appears three times in this paragraph. The CSV translates it “keep.”

3 This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. 4 The one who says, "I have come to know Him," without keeping His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is accomplished. 

The word literally means “to keep your eye on something.” It is the word used to describe guarding a prisoner, or guarding some item you do not want stolen, or protecting someone from danger. The idea is that you do not let the thing out of your sight. Jesus gave us some insight into the idea behind this word in Mt.23.

Matthew 23:2-3 The scribes and the Pharisees are seated in the chair of Moses. 3 Therefore do whatever they tell you and keep it. But don't do what they do, because they don't practice what they teach.

When someone shows you something from God’s Word – no matter who that person is, if what they are showing you is indeed from God’s Word, then Jesus tells you to do two things: 1) do it, and 2) keep it.
The word “do” is an aorist imperative. That points to singular, punctiliar action. They tell you to do something; you do it.
The word “keep” is a present imperative. That points to continual, ongoing, linear action. It is more than mere obedience. It is an ongoing, steady-state condition. “Keeping,” means to keep on clinging to it. To keep watch over it and guard it so that nothing comes and snatches it out of your heart. It carries the idea of both perseverance and preciousness. You keep guarding it because it is precious to you.
God is not just interested in sporadic acts of obedience. He calls us to respond to His commands as a way of life – all day long every day. That is an important emphasis because natural, human religion tends to think in terms of sporadic episodes of religion. They think every time they do something good it is kind of like doing God a favor. If you do someone three favors in a day that is good. If you do 20, that is better.
But that is not even close to the right way of looking at how we are to serve God. You cannot do God a favor. We do not do God favors. We serve Him as His slaves. Over and over the Bible refers to Christians as slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Owner, and we owe Him our very lives. He is not interested in sporadic episodes of religion. He is interested in our every thought and breath being for His glory.
Are there unbelievers who try to obey the Bible? Yes. Are there people who avoid lying and killing and adultery because God said not to do those things in the Ten Commandments? Absolutely. But are those people keepers of the Word of God? Do they treasure up God’s Word in their heart? Is their delight in the Law of the Lord such that they meditate on it day and night – striving to never let it out of their sight? No. They may do some of the things the Bible says to do, but they are not keepers of the Word of God. And it is only the keepers of God’s Word who are saved. 
Grace is not opposed to obedience 
 Do not ever let anyone confuse you about the importance of our responsiveness to God’s commands. If anyone ever tries to tell you that grace is somehow opposed to obedience, or that grace means we do not have to respond to God’s commands, tell that person to re-read the Great Commission. 

Matthew 28:18-20 All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to obey (lit. keep) everything I have commanded you.

You know you are a Christian when there is a continual guarding and holding to His commands in your heart. That is the effect of grace.
Treasuring God’s Word
The true believer is one who treasures the Word of God. Any time you find one of God’s commands to be grievous or burdensome – that should be a red alert. That is an extremely dangerous sign. The most foolish and reckless thing you could do at that point is say, “Well, I’ll just grit my teeth and obey anyway.” No – you need to not only obey the command, but keep the command. You need to find out what it is in you that makes you dislike that command – what worldly poison is your heart in love with.

II. Loving
The link between knowing and doing
So, the first aspect of knowing God that we see is keeping – the one who knows God keeps His commands. The second aspect is the thing that causes the connection between the believing and the doing. It is a very common theme in Scripture that if your beliefs do not affect your actions, then you do not truly believe. There is a kind of believing that does not run deep enough to drive your actions and affections. We all know what it is like to “believe” there is no danger, and yet you are still scared. Or you “believe,” at some level, that God will take care of you, and yet you are still worried. Or you “believe” what you did was right, and yet you still feel guilty. Or you “believe” exercising and diet would make you happier, but you end up deciding not to do it. There is a kind of believing that just does not seem to make it all the way down to that part of you that generates emotions and makes final decisions.
What is it that makes a belief penetrate deep enough to become a true belief? What is it that makes a truth become a part of you so that you think and feel and choose and act in line with that truth?
The Accomplishment of the Love of God
The answer is in verse five.

5 But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected. 

Our love for God
The phrase “the love of God” sometimes refers to God’s love for us; other times it means our love for God, and other times it just means divine love. Here, I am convinced the meaning is our love for God. John has spoken of our fellowship with God and our knowing God, and now our loving God. In each case it is a reciprocal relationship – God also has fellowship with us and knows us and loves us.
So the idea of God’s love for us is implied, but John’s emphasis each time has been on the human side of the relationship.

Made complete 
So when you keep God’s Word, it is because your love for God is being perfected. Probably a better translation for that word “perfected” would be “accomplished.” That word can mean perfected, but it can also refer simply to something being accomplished or carried out. John used that word five times in his gospel. In four of those, the idea is of something being carried out or accomplished.

John 4:34 "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work," Jesus told them.
John 5:36 "But I have a greater testimony than John's because of the works that the Father has given Me to accomplish. 
John 17:4 I have glorified You on the earth by accomplishing the work You gave Me to do.
John 19:28 After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now accomplished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, He said, "I'm thirsty!"

Here in 1 John that word is used four times – always in reference to love. Love is something that begins in your heart and must be carried out, or accomplished, in your actions. The Greek word is teleioo. You can think of it this way – an apple tree is teleioo (perfected, completed, accomplished), when it produces apples. The apples are not the tree, but they are the main purpose of the tree. Acts of obedience do not equal love for God. But they are the main outworking of love. Love for God is carried out or completed or accomplished or perfected when it is expressed in acts of obedience. Acts of obedience that do not spring forth from love for God are worthless. But true love accomplishes its goal only when it obeys.
So the answer to our question about the connection between knowing and doing is this – it is love for God that is the catalyst that brings about the actions. When you have one of those superficial beliefs, where it seems like you fully believe something and yet it does not seem to show up in your emotions or decisions or actions, the problem is there is a lack of love for God in that area.
So if I say, “I believe in prayer! I believe it is important!” and yet I find myself not really praying much, it is because of a lack of love for God in that area. I do not love the sensation of being listened to by God. I do not love the process of pouring out my heart to Someone who has compassion on me. I do not love the promises that He will listen and respond to my prayers.
If I claim to believe evangelism is important, but I do not find myself doing it, it is because I do not love God enough to love those He loves. If I claim to believe self-control in my eating would be a good thing, but I find myself constantly overeating, it is because I love the taste of food more than I love the nearness to God that I could enjoy if I followed the way of wisdom that He has revealed in His Word.
Every sin is a preferring of something above the nearness of God. And so every sin is an act of loving something else more than you love the presence of God. The accomplishment or fruit or outworking of love for God is always the keeping of His Word, because the more you delight in Him the more you will delight in His way.
That is the significance of the word “truly” in verse four. No matter how you think you feel about God, love for God is not genuine unless it expresses itself in your preferences. You love what you prefer. If you claim to love God in an area where you are preferring something else over God, your love is not truly love. It is truly love for God when you prefer His river of delights to the delicacies of this world. That is why I keep telling you (and telling myself) – do not ever be satisfied with mere resisted temptation. Do not be satisfied until your resistance is a real act of preferring. Do not be satisfied until evil is despised and good is delighted in and preferred. 

III. Remaining 
So the first aspect of knowing God is keeping – treasuring God’s Word and persevering in continual, ongoing responsiveness to it. The second aspect is loving God. Knowing becomes doing by means of loving. Now let’s look at the third aspect. And this one is easy to miss because it is only two letters. In chapter 1, John described our relationship with God with the word “fellowship” - fellowship with God. In 2:3-4 he described the same thing in terms of knowing God. In verse five he described the same thing in terms of loving God: Fellowship with God, knowing God, loving God. And now at the end of verse five John uses yet another description of that same relationship. 

5 …This is how we know we are in Him

Being a Christian means being in God. What does that mean? In a context like this, that Greek word does not mean “inside,” in a spatial sense. When the Greek word en is used to describe a relationship with a person it describes the closest possible relationship. It is never used of human relationships. I looked through all the uses of that word in the NT (almost 3000!), and there is never a time when it says one person is in another person except for the relationship between Jesus with the Father and us with God. It is not even used of the husband-wife relationship. It is a term that describes an association, union, oneness, and identification that is so close that it needs it is own word to describe it – a word reserved only for this relationship and no other relationship.
Fellowship with God is an awesome, staggering reality to consider if you stop to think about it. And knowing God takes it even further. Knowing, in the biblical sense, points to an intimacy of relationship that goes even beyond fellowship. Then the term loving takes it even further. And now this term takes it as far as it can go. This is the word that describes the relationship between the members of the Trinity.
And even though that is as far as you can go, John finds a way to take it a step further in verse six.

6 the one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.

He adds “remaining” to the idea of being in God - Not only being in Him, but being in Him in an ongoing, persistent, continuous, persevering way.
Are you starting to get the feeling that John wants us to think of Christianity in terms of a personal relationship with God? That phrase “personal relationship with God” has become such a cliché in our time that it hardly means anything anymore. But let’s let John rescue that phrase from cliché-land, because it is the heart of the Gospel. If your involvement with God is not personal - if it is a mere religious association, or set of beliefs you identify with, or a club you belong to, or adhering to a moral code - none of that is Christianity. True religion is matter of loving a Person.
And if you have a relationship with anyone or anything that is closer and more intimate and more delightful than your relationship with that Person who is in heaven, you are not a Christian. That includes your wife, husband, children, parents, friends. Your interaction with Christ must be your closest, most intimate relationship or it does not exist. If it is not your closest relationship, then there is no relationship. John does not give us a middle ground. He does not have a category for people who have fellowship with God but who do not know Him, or who know Him but who do not love Him, or who love Him but who are not in Him. You are in Him in the closest, most personal kind of relationship possible in the universe, or you are lost.
This marvelous, astonishing reality of being in Christ – related to Him with a union and closeness that is more profound even than marriage, is not an obscure, rare, isolated truth in Scripture. It is plastered everywhere you read in the New Testament. And it is a fantastic thing because it is a reversal of the problem of alienation from God. We were God’s enemies and His wrath burned against us with awesome fury, and we hated Him and His ways and were dead to Him and at enmity with Him, and through Christ He reconciled us to Himself, and reconciled us with a capital R. We went all the way from His eternal, damning wrath to being in Him, and He in us.
And the significance of all that to what John is saying is this: You cannot be that close to God without it having an impact on the way you live. Just as you cannot get close to the sun without getting hot, you cannot get this close to God without getting holy. God is so good – so beautiful and holy and righteous and pure and powerful and satisfying and delightful and awesome – that if you are connected with Him in a relationship this close, it will have a drastic impact on the way you feel and think and choose and love and behave. And it is the height of absurdity and deceit to claim to have that kind of nearness to God when your life shows no real change. Very often when people give their testimony of how they became a Christian they say something like this: “I became a Christian at age 16 when I walked an aisle. But there was no real change in my life until I really gave my heart to the Lord at age 29.” It is not always easy to be absolutely sure when your conversion actually happened. But it is a very safe bet that in a case like that you were saved at age 29, not 16, because there is no such thing as a salvation that does not transform your life.

Conclusion
There is a fourth aspect of obedience is in verse six, but we will leave that for now and let’s see if we can tie all this together. John has been telling us that to know God is to obey Him. We have that saying “To know Him is to love him;” with God it is “To know Him is to obey Him.” And we saw last time why that is, but now that we have looked at the passage in some more depth we can answer that question in a fuller way. Let’s think through the relationship between being in God, loving God, knowing God, and keeping His commands.
The purpose of God’s law (for us)
Let’s start by asking this – What is the purpose of God’s law? Does God give us commands because He needs stuff done? No. God does not need anything done. Anything He wants done He could get done with a mere thought.
Human institutions and governments have rules and laws in order to prevent chaos. Does God need laws to prevent chaos? No – He could eliminate all chaos with a single thought if He chose to.
Does God give us commands because He needs us to serve Him? No. We are not even capable of carrying out His commands without His enabling us. So He does not receive anything from us – we receive everything from Him. Our following God’s rules does not benefit God.
So why does He give us commands? He gives them because they benefit us. In verses seven and eight of Psalm 19 we see four effects God’s Law has on us. It revives the soul, makes us wise, gives joy to our hearts, and gives light to our eyes. Raise your hand if you could use some restoration, wisdom, guidance, insight, and joy. God knew you needed all that, so He took all that, wrapped it all up in a package called “law,” and placed a copy in your hands.

10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. 

Every law God ever gave is an act of mercy and grace. They are road signs that show us the way of blessedness. They are doctor’s prescriptions that save us from paths of death. You do not do your doctor a favor by taking the pills he prescribes. If you follow his instructions you do yourself a favor. God’s laws are containers of the greatest treasure there is – revelation of the very heart of God. They reveal to us what is truly good and right and beneficial and delightful and beautiful and profitable and important; and they expose what is not.
The primary meaning of the word “law” (TORAH) is instruction. God instructs us about Himself through His Word. We take that for granted, but that is an amazing gift of grace. The pagans had to guess what their gods wanted. When drought or famine came they would try one ritual after another in blind flailing and stabs in the dark in hopes to stumble across the thing that was bothering the gods. And usually those rituals involved giving up something good as a sacrifice or inflicting harm on themselves in some way. How different it is to serve a God who has revealed His will to us completely! We know exactly what He wants from us and exactly what pleases Him! And He wants and is pleased by nothing that is harmful to us. The things that glorify Him most happen to also be the very things that are most beneficial and joy-producing and profitable for us! What an astonishing gift is the Word of God!
Look at verse eight.

8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. 

If what you are doing is a drudgery you are not on the path pointed to by the precepts of the Lord. The Word of God points us to a path that rejoices the heart. So if your prayers or your ministry or your Bible reading or your job or any part of your life is mostly drudgery, you are not doing it in the way God has revealed in His Word because His Word puts you on a path that brings joy to the heart. And no other path will ever be able to bring as much joy to your heart as the path God has revealed in His Word.
There are three kinds of things we can read: The Bible, books that help us understand the Bible, and books that do not help us understand the Bible. It is a sad truth that many of us spend much more time in the third category than the first two. Why do we do that? We do it because we find the reading of other books more enjoyable or useful than Scripture. And in the short term they may very well be. But those books are not the path to the greatest enjoyment. The pleasure they bring is shallow and superficial, and will evaporate into nothingness when the real pain and sorrows of life strike. Only a steady, full diet of the truths of God’s Word will build a foundation of joy that will be able to not only withstand the hurricanes of suffering, but that will be so much larger and greater than even the worst kinds of suffering that despair will never be able to overtake your joy. One writer compared the Word of God to the pool of Bethesda in John five. On the porches around the pool there were a great number of disabled people – sick, blind, lame, paralyzed. And the people believed that if they could jump into the pool while the waters were being stirred, they would be healed. John Bois, one of the translators of the KJV, said, “Our souls are like the porches of Bethesda … and the Scriptures are like the pool of Bethesda.” Scattered all around in our hearts are the diseases of greed, anger, lust, selfishness, folly, and every kind of idolatry. And if we could just roll ourselves into the pool, and immerse ourselves in the wisdom of God, we would be healed.” Bois went on: “Is any man down? The statutes of the Lord rejoice the heart. Is any man poor? The judgments of the Lord are more to be desired than much fine gold, and by keeping of them there is a great reward. Is any man ignorant? The testimonies of the Lord give wisdom to the simple (so that you are wiser than all your teachers.) Is anyone discouraged? The law of the Lord revives the soul. Is anyone in the dark and in need of guidance or enlightenment? The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” 
If you don’t love the Word – question your salvation
If you are one of those people who does not love and treasure God’s Word, you have a really good reason to question your salvation. People who are faking it are the people who take no real delight in the commands of God. They do not want to sit in a church where someone is up there going on and on about nothing but Scripture. They would rather go to hear how they can have their best life now. They want to go somewhere where they get 20 minutes of assurance about how God loves them no matter what. They want video clips, stories, clever insights from books, jokes, skits – anything but Scripture.
A true Christian loves God’s Word even when it pierces like a knife. A person who truly knows God sits under the teaching of God’s Word, and if something comes up from the Bible that pinpoints a sin in their lives, and they are convicted in a painful way as they discover an area sin they did not realize was there; when that happens they are the first ones in line to pick up the CD that week and they listen to that sermon over and over. And if someone asks them, “How was the sermon?” they say, “This one was an especially good one.” The false Christian, if you preach against their treasured sins, just gets angry. “That crackpot doesn’t know anything – I have better things to do on a Sunday morning than have some holier-than-thou preacher sticking his nose into my business.” A true Christian longs to understand his Bible. A false Christian is content to just leave it on the shelf all week long.
It is an alarming thing, when someone is choosing a church, and they end up saying, “Well, church A is where I learn more from God’s Word, but church B has better music, more programs, better coffee, friendlier people, is closer to my house, is closer to the size I like, has a Saturday service so it doesn’t crowd my weekend, has more fun stuff to keep the kids occupied (because I am more concerned with my kids liking church than I am about whether they actually learn from God’s Word)…” - whatever it is, if something besides the Word of God is the biggest factor in your decision-making, something is wrong.

Keep the Word!
I want to close by just offering some practical advice that might help those of you who struggle with loving the Word of God. If you are a person who finds reading the Bible to be a drudgery I want to urge you in the strongest possible terms – do not let that continue! If you are one of those people who does not even spend time in Scripture every day, or you force yourself to do your daily reading out of sheer duty and discipline, I would urge you to make it the number one priority of your life to change that. Listen to Psalm one – 

Psalms 1:1-2 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers… 

…but he grinds out his 20 minutes in the Bible every day whether he feels like it or not, so he can get through the whole thing in a year. Is that what it says?

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD

God did not say, “Blessed is the man who reads his Bible every day.” He said, “Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord.” So let me suggest a few practical ideas for warming up your heart toward loving God’s Word.
1) Pray for help
It has been very helpful to me to start my time in the Word every morning by asking for God’s help in four ways. You can remember these with the acrostic S.I.O.U.S.

You can remember these with the acrostic S.I.O.U.S.
S is for Seek
Communion with God is a two-way interaction.
Remind yourself that you need God to come to you.

Psalm 119:176 I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands

The psalmists were continually asking God to come near to them and not to be far from them.

I is for Incline.

Psalm 119:36 Incline my heart toward your statutes 

Inclination has to do with what you like and do not like. When you observe the things around you, you do not do so with a detached, dispassionate, robotic analysis. The things you see you not only analyze, but you have a sense of either liking and being attracted to them, or disliking and being uninterested in them. You are either inclined toward them or away from them.
Our natural condition is to wake up in the morning disinclined with respect to God’s Word. Before I crack open God’s Word, I take a second to remind myself that it is very possible that I could begin reading, come across some wonderful truth about God, and not be thrilled by it at all. And that would be a catastrophe! What could be worse than that! And so I begin by begging God: “Please, please, dear Lord – don’t be far from me, and incline my heart so that whatever it is You are about to show me, my heart will be inclined toward it when I see it.”

O is for Open.

Psalm 119:18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.

When you read something in Scripture about God and it does not thrill your soul and cause great joy and peace and comfort and awe and delight, there is only one explanation for how that could happen. Your eyes are blind to what is wonderful about that truth. There are no truths about God that do not excite you just because they are not your cup of tea. Every single one of them would absolutely thrill you if your eyes were opened to see what is so wonderful about it. And only God can do that. So pray – “God, draw near, and incline my heart and open my eyes.”

U is for Unite.

Psalm 86:11 Unite my heart, that I may fear your name. 

When we come to the Word of God, we usually come with our heart scattered in ten different directions. Twenty percent of me is thinking about the day to come, and 30% of me thinking about breakfast, and 10% of me is wondering how the Nuggets did last night, and about 5% of me is actually paying attention to the Lord. And I need to pray and say, “God, please – come close to me, and incline my heart and open my eyes and unite my heart so for this brief little time I can focus my entire being on You.”

S is for Satisfy.

Psalm 90:14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Scripture is clear that the presence of God is like food – it always satisfies the soul. That means if you go away from your time in the Word unsatisfied, it is because you did not experience the presence of God. And so before you begin, pray and ask the Lord: “Draw near to me, and incline my heart and open my eyes and unite my heart and satisfy my soul with your unfailing love.”
2) SLOW DOWN! 
The second thing I recommend is SLOW DOWN. If God’s Word is dry to you, you are probably going way too fast. There is nothing spiritual about reading through the Bible in a year.

2 Timothy 2:7 Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.

God did not intend His Word to be immediately understood. Some people can do really well reading several chapters at a time. But if you are like me, that is way too fast. It is like trying to hit 12 restaurants in your 30 minute lunch break – you cannot enjoy any of them.
I think one of the best ways to train yourself to dislike the Word of God is to read something you do not understand one day, and the next day move on to something else you do not understand. That is like being on a scavenger hunt where God placed a priceless treasure at each place. But you are in such a hurry to finish the hunt that you go to each place, look around for ten seconds, do not find the treasure, and then move on to the next stop. And you get to the end and you have not found one single treasure. And you are proud of yourself for finishing the whole thing so fast, but you feel guilty for not really enjoying it.
My advice is do not move on to the next place until you find the treasure at the place where you are. If you cannot see what is marvelous and glorious and delightful and satisfying and joy producing about the text you read in the morning, get a commentary (or two or three) and try to figure out what it means. Study the context. Ask your small group leader or your pastor. Ask all your friends. Memorize a portion of the passage and meditate on it during free moments during the day. And come back to it again and again – day after day, until you crack that nut. And when you find the treasure, stay there and enjoy it for a while. Spend a day or two thinking and praying and writing and talking to others about the implications of that truth. And write down your insights so you can refer back to them in the future (on a day when you really need a good insight and do not have time to study). Then you can move on.
3) Read expectantly 

Psalms 5:4 In the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. 

God has made huge and marvelous promises regarding what we can expect from His Word. Trust those promises! Joy and restoration and enlightenment and satisfaction of soul are there for the taking. God has not placed them out of your reach if you seek after them with all your heart. Never dishonor God by approaching His Word with an attitude that assumes it will be unable to give you that which God has promised. When you open your Bible, think: What are my expectations?
4) Read personally 
Realize you are seeking communion with a person.

Psalm 119:41 Let your love come to me, O LORD, … according to your Word.

This is not a newspaper or a textbook or a novel or a self-help book or an instruction manual. It is a letter to you from God. Imagine a woman reading a love letter from the man she adores, and who she misses and for whom her heart yearns. She is not reading that letter just to become informed or gather information. She reads and re-reads and fixes her full attention on every word and every emphasis and every implication. She is not even looking at the letter, really – she is straining her eyes to look into the heart of her beloved. And when she is done she has deeper love for him than when she started. Her whole purpose in reading was to stoke the fires of love in her heart. Read Psalm 119 sometime and you will see that is the way the psalmist read the Word of God. Your time in Scripture should be a time of personal, relational interaction with God.
4) Read the Psalms
When in doubt read the Psalms. How many times have you blown your whole devotion time just trying to decide what to read? My advice is if you do not have definite plans to read something else, just open up to your bookmark in the Psalms and start in on the next one. There is no denser concentration of truth about the nature and attributes of God than in the Psalms. And the fact that they are already prayers makes them the easiest part of Scripture to read relationally. 

Benediction: Jos.1:7-9 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Knowing God & Loving People Part 3 Imitating Jesus 2:6b

Summary: The claim to remain in God requires that you walk as Jesus walked. Imitation is more than mere obedience. This is a reassurance when you understand chapter one-type obedience (repentance), but the main purpose is not assurance but obligation. Imitation is crucially important. It is the focus of predestination. We cannot know what Jesus would do until we have a good working knowledge of what Jesus did do. The first five in my list are Submission, Humiliation, Fasting, Growth, and Prayer. Pick one to work on this week.

The claim requires the walk
It is comforting to the believer when you understand ch.1
But the main purpose is not assurance. It is obligation
So WDJD?
1.	Submission (Preferring God’s will)
Loving God = devotion to His will
“Not my will” – conflicting desires (resolve and impulse)
Obey human authorities in order to obey God
2.	Humiliation (Perfecting Power in weakness)
3.	Fasting (Putting away empty ritual)
4.	Growth (Progressing in grace)
5.	Prayer (Planning extended Predetermined Places of Passionate, Persistent, Petitions, Pleas, Praises, and Prayers)
Went places where He could have extended times of prayer
Go to a special place
Conclusion
Devotionals: The God who guides His people
Day 1: It is wonderful to be guided through life
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 2: The God who guides us personally
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 3: The God who guides into His own presence
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 4: His way is better than any other way
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:
Day 5: He teaches us because of our oppressors
What is wonderful about this attribute:
Experiencing this attribute:

1 John 2:3-6 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to remain in him must walk as He walked.
 
The claim requires the walk
Last week we enjoyed a few appetizers in verses 3-5, now in verse 6 John is going to give us the real meat and potatoes of this section. Brace yourself for a galactically huge statement. 

6 the one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.
Imitation is more than obedience 
So far in verses 3-5 John has been talking about keeping God’s commands. Now he bumps it up a notch. Imitation is more than obedience. You can obey someone without imitating him. You can do everything your boss says and still be nothing like your boss. And that is fine. In most jobs it is not necessary for you to imitate your boss as long as you obey. But Christ calls us to both obey and imitate Him.

1 Peter 2:21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus 

1 Corinthians 11:1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

If your Christianity stops at mere conformity of external behavior to a list of rules, that is not Christianity. The Christian life is a life of Christ-likeness. Jesus’ favorite term for those who followed Him was “disciples.” 

Luke 6:40 A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.

God is concerned not just with what you do, but with what you are. What you do only has significance inasmuch as it is a reflection of what you are. And so the goal of our existence is for your very nature to become more and more like Jesus Christ. The idea is not just to mimic Jesus’ actions but to be transformed into His very nature.
Every so often George Barna does a survey and finds that X percentage of Americans are Christians (based on what they claim to believe), and some small percentage of them live differently from the world. John is very exercised to show us that that is nonsense. When you examine how many are Christians and how many live like it and you come up with two different numbers your method is off.
How is this comforting?
So what are we to make of the statement at the end of v.5 – This is how we know we are in Him? Is this passage about assurance? Is verse 6 supposed to bring me comfort? “Don’t fret about your salvation – you can have full assurance that you are saved. All you have to do is walk like Jesus walked. As long as you live just like Jesus Christ then you can be sure you’re saved.” When I began studying this verse my thought was, That is about as non-comforting and assurance-destroying as a statement could possibly be.

It is comforting to the believer when you understand ch.1
How does this verse reassure us? There are a couple ways to answer that. First, verse 6 is indeed reassuring to the true Christian as long as you understand chapter 1. Remember, at the outset of this book John made it clear that when he talks about obedience or walking in the light, or keeping the commandments or walking like Christ; he is not talking about doing so perfectly. If you claim to do that you are a liar. The point is to have a heart that says, “My greatest desire is to live like Christ..,” and to have affections that see the way Christ lives and love what you see. And to strive with all that is in you to become more like Him and to set that as your highest goal and aspiration. And when you fail – repent! God counts that as walking in the light. When you step off into the darkness you repent and turn back to God. Repenting is not just saying, “I’m sorry God. I’ll try harder next time.” Repenting is returning to God with all your heart and seeking after Him with all your soul. 
So that is my first response to the question of “How is this reassuring?” It is reassuring because if you have as your life goal Christ-likeness, and where you fall short you repent, you can be assured of your salvation.

But the main purpose is not assurance. It is obligation
But the other answer I would give is this – I do not think the main purpose here is assurance. John gave us verse 3 for assurance. But the purpose of verse 6 is to point us not so much to assurance, but to obligation. That word “should” in verse 6 is a very strong word. If you make the claim to be in God, by making that claim you obligate yourself to live like Christ lived. It is a word that communicates inherent obligation. “Inherent” meaning it is an obligation that comes not so much from a specific command, but from the state of affairs itself.
The argument between John and his opponents was not so much whether this or that particular practice was sin or not, but over what our method of discerning good and bad should even be. Where does the “ought” come from in your system? Even more fundamental than what we ought to do is what compels our “ought”. The big question is not so much, “Do you think murder is OK?” but “Why isn’t it OK?” If you walk up to ten people on the street and ask the first question they will all say the same thing. But if you ask the second question you will get a variety of answers, most of which rise out of a system of determining right and wrong that allows them to define anything they really want to do as right. What is the basis for the imperatives in your system? For the Christian the standard is the life of Jesus. 
The importance of imitation 
Our imitation of Christ is a very important matter. It is the goal of the eternal purposes of God in predestination. 

Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

God the Father loves God the Son with infinite love and delight. He loves Jesus that much because of what Jesus is like. And so there is nothing He delights in more than when you are like Christ in some way. In fact, I think it is safe to say there is nothing God delights in at all with regard to the way we live our lives, except that which imitates His Son. But to the degree we do imitate Jesus, the Father’s exuberant joy and delight in us is as extreme as His love for Jesus Himself. 

So WDJD?
So the question for us is very basic – How did Jesus walk? If the bottom line for us is walking as Jesus walked, we need to understand exactly how Jesus walked. It is a good thing to ask WWJD. Of all the fads that have come along, that has got to be the best one. The problem is asking that question does no good if you do not know the answer. We have a whole lot of people running around asking, “What would Jesus do?” who do not have the slightest idea what Jesus would do in a certain situation.
You can never know the answer to WWJD if you do not know the answer to WDJD. You cannot know what Jesus would do until you have a good command of what Jesus did do. Because what Jesus would do today is the exact same things that He did do when He walked this earth. He would make the same kinds of decisions, have the same priorities, and do the same sort of works. 
I said that most people do not know the answer to WWJD, but the sad thing is most of them don’t know that they don’t know. They think WWJD is the easiest question in the world to answer. And they think that because most people have a conception of Jesus as being very much like themselves. For them, asking “What would Jesus do?” is the same as asking, “What do I feel would be best?” But anyone who has ever studied the life of Jesus at all knows that what we naturally think is best and what Jesus tended to do are very often as far from each other as the east is from the west. 

I really wanted to finish v.6 last week so we could move on to the next paragraph today. And we almost made it. We covered everything but the last five words - …”must walk as He walked.” And I thought about just saying a few sentences about how important it is to follow Jesus’ example and then moving on. But then I thought, What in the world good does it do to tell people to walk like Jesus if you don’t give them some idea of how Jesus walked?, so I went through all four gospels and made a list of everything I could find that Jesus did. For me to preach them all I would have to just go verse by verse through all four gospels- which I plan to do someday, but we should probably try to get through 1 John before we do that. So I grouped them all together into about 20 categories. And if 20 is too many for you, all 20 of them are expressions of one thing – love for God. There are about 20 different ways Jesus’ love for the Father was expressed in the way He lived. My goal this morning is to look at the first five. By far the most important of these is the first one, so we’ll take a little extra time on that one.
Submission (Preferring God’s will)
Luke 2 tells us about Jesus’ childhood. In verse 51 we see Him obeying His parents.

Luke 2:51 Then [Jesus] went down to Nazareth with [his parents] and was obedient to them. 

Children – if you claim to be a Christian you must obey your parents – because that is what Jesus did. Jesus not only submitted to His parents, He also submitted to other authorities. He obeyed the wicked, godless civil government – the Jewish government and the Roman government. He paid His taxes, and told His followers to do the same. He did not lead an insurrection or revolution. He obeyed the law.
And the reason Jesus obeyed the government and obeyed His parents was not because He thought they were perfect in their wisdom. The reason He did it is because Jesus had absolute trust in the wisdom of His Father in heaven, and He wanted to do nothing but His Father’s will.

John 8:29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.

Jesus never did anything else. He was not interested in anything else. His Father’s will was so delightful to Him, so satisfying to Him, He wanted nothing else. 

John 4:34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 

Doing the Father’s will gave Him strength and health and it tasted good to Him and was satisfying to His soul. It is fitting that submission to authority would be the first thing we would see Jesus doing, because that is really the summary of all Jesus did.

John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.

John 5:30 I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

John 14:31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

John 15:10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love

John 17:4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Hebrews 5:8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience 

Loving God = devotion to His will
You might be thinking, “Wait a minute – first you told us the summary of everything Jesus did was love for God. Now you are saying the summary of everything He did was submission to the will of God. Which is it?” The answer is those two have to go together because if you love God you will desire what He desires. And what He desires is His will.
You see, submitting to authority is all about love. We love God and so we love His will and His desires and His plans and His decisions. So the summary of Jesus’ life was: He loved the Father so much that He treasured His will. And that is why Jesus was so obedient to His parents and to the government – because their authority is given by God, so obeying them = carrying out God’s will.

“Not my will” – conflicting desires (resolve and impulse)
Now, I need to take a few moments to address a problem here. Jesus desired only the Father’s will. Their hearts were perfectly united.

John 10:30 I and the Father are one.

But how do we reconcile that with passages like Luke 22:42?

Luke 22:42 Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done

John 6:38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who 
sent me.

Romans 15:2-3 Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself

Now that presents us with a bit of a problem. Last week I told you that if your serving God is a drudgery, you are not in the path pointed to by Scripture, because Scripture points us to a path that delights the heart (Psalm 19:8). We all understand from Malachi 3 that we are never to serve God with an attitude that says, “What a burden this is.” We are not to grind out our service to God – we are to desire it and delight in it and love it. So the problem is this – if Jesus delighted in God’s will, then isn’t His will identical to God’s will? If Jesus wanted the same thing that the Father wanted why would He say “not My will but Yours”? Why did He say, “I have not come down from heaven to do My will”? If the will of the Father was the most pleasing thing to Jesus, then why does Romans 15 say Jesus did not please Himself?
The answer is this – Everyone, including Jesus, has conflicting desires. That is part of being a sentient, conscious being. For example, think of what is going on inside you when you make a resolution to start exercising. You say, “I want to start exercising.” But there is another part of you that says, “No – I don’t want to work out.” We will call that first kind of wanting “resolve.” And we will call that second kind of wanting “impulse.” I am resolved to do my pushups at least four days a week. But when I follow the impulses of my flesh I do them zero times a week. I am resolved to get up every morning at 5:15. But when I follow my impulses, 5:15 is the middle of the night. When my kids were little I was resolved to consistently discipline them when they disobeyed. But when I followed my impulses I very often failed to discipline them.
Conflicting desires are not a part of our fallen nature. They are not bad. If the best thing for your child is to be punished when he disobeys, if you love your child you will say, “I am going to punish him because I want what is best for Him.” But if you are a loving parent you are also going to say, “I do not want to do this!” Both of those are desires, and both are good.
When your child is struggling with something really hard, your first impulse is to want to just jump in and help. But sometimes you know it is best to let him struggle until he learns to stand on his own two feet. And so you have conflicting desires – you desire to help and at the same time you desire to let him learn and grow. And when you have conflicting desires, one ranks higher than the others. And the one that ranks highest at the moment of decision is the one you choose. 
Even God has conflicting desires.

Lamentations 3:31-33 men are not cast off by the Lord forever. 32 Though he brings grief (note: it is the Lord who brings grief) he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. 33 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Andrew Wommack says God is not sovereign over painful circumstances. But the Bible says very clearly that it is indeed God who brings grief. But if God has compassion on you, why does He bring grief? Does He enjoy doing that? No – verse 33 says He does not “willingly” do it. Literally it says, “For God does not bring affliction from His heart.” He does not like doing it, and yet He chooses to go ahead and do it anyway because it is what is best for you. And He desires to do what is best for you. His impulse is to spare you the pain, but His resolve is to do what is best, and so He goes against the impulse of His heart to do what is in your best interests. He is like a parent disciplining his child and saying, “This hurts me more than it hurts you” and it really does.
The most striking example of this is the death of Jesus on the cross. Did God desire that? Yes and no.

Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to crush him and cause him to suffer.

We know that God takes no pleasure in sin. He hates sin. And yet He loved what He was accomplishing in the crucifixion of Jesus. And so at the same time He did not desire what was happening and He did desire what was happening. 
This is why the Bible says that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And yet in other passages it says that God desires just that.

Ezekiel 18:32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. 

Deuteronomy 28:63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. 

2 Peter 3:9 …The Lord is not willing that any should perish.

1 Samuel 2:25 … [Eli’s] sons did not listen to their father's rebuke, for it was the LORD's will to put them to death.

God’s impulse is to never put a single person to death or send a single person to hell. But His resolve is to do both. At one level God is pleased by everything He does, because everything He does is perfect. But some of those perfect things run counter to the impulses that rise from God’s compassion. And so at the same time God can say, “I am choosing to do this because it is best,” and also say, “I do not enjoy this at all.” 
So, all that is to explain how Jesus could desire only the Father’s will on the one hand, but on the other hand sometimes have to say, “Not my will but Your will.” What He was saying is, “My highest desire is not My own impulses but Your plan.”
So how do we follow Jesus’ example in this? In those instances when there is a conflict between our impulses and what God wants, our highest desire will be what God wants and not our own impulses. 
Is serving God a drudgery? No – it should never be a burden or a drudgery. But does it involve self-denial? Absolutely. Every good thing requires that you say no to some lesser good things. An hour before your big Thanksgiving meal you desire a snack, but you desire to keep your appetite in tact more – so you deny yourself out of a desire for greater joy. The man who finds a treasure in a field has to sell everything he has to get the field, and it is his joy that drives him to give up everything. So self-denial? Yes. Drugery? No.

Obey human authorities in order to obey God
So the reason Jesus submitted to authority was because He loved the Father so much that the Father’s will was supreme in Jesus’ affections. And so when God said, “Children obey your parents,” little 12-year-old Jesus saw that command and said, “Hey, here’s a chance for Me to fulfill the will of my Father in heaven! I can submit to His authority by obeying My parents.” So, children, do you understand why it is so important to obey your parents? Obeying your parents is a matter of obeying God. It does not matter whether you think they are smart or non-smart - we obey to honor God, just like Jesus did. The same goes for us adults – your mom submitting to your dad, your parents submitting to the government or church leaders.
Remember this when you are tempted to resist the authorities in your life. Are you greater than Christ? Are we higher and smarter and more dignified, so that He must obey but we do not have to? Let’s follow His example in loving the will of God above our own impulses. 
Humiliation (Perfecting Power in weakness)
All the rest of the items in this list are nothing but examples of Jesus’ submission to the Father. So let’s take a look at His very first act of obedience. If we are going to follow Jesus’ example we should start right from the very beginning. And the very first thing Jesus ever did as a human being that is recorded in Scripture was to be born. And at first it may not seem like you can learn much from His example there – but there is actually an entire chapter of Scripture devoted to how we should follow His example in that area. You see, the reason Jesus was born is because He decided to set aside His glory in heaven and become a weak, frail, needy, dependent human being. And that act of setting aside His glory and subjecting Himself to weakness is an example for us.

Philippians 2:5-7 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very form God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the very form of a servant, being made in human likeness. 

Notice that first line – Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. His leaving heaven and subjecting Himself to the frailty and weakness of humanness is an example for us to follow.
Jesus did not become a man like Adam and Eve before the fall. When mankind fell into sin and received the effects of the curse everything changed. Now we get sick and injured and all kinds of things go wrong with our bodies. When holy God took on human flesh He took on flesh that was ravaged and spoiled and wrecked and ruined by the effects of sin. Jesus did not recoil from subjecting Himself to the effects of His own curse.
We all want physical strength and health, but if you pray for it and God says no – don’t fret. His grace is sufficient for you. Power is made perfect in weakness. Weakness has a way of creating dependence upon God, which is the greatest treasure you could ever gain. Jesus accomplished His greatest work through His frailty and weakness. If you want to walk like Jesus walked, use your human limitations and physical weaknesses as a platform that becomes the stage upon which the power of God is put on display. 
Fasting (Putting away empty ritual)
That is not to say we need to seek affliction or weakness. Thankfully we can leave that up to God. Although there is one thing that Jesus did and that you can do that is a kind of self-affliction that helps remind you of your dependence upon God. And that is fasting. At the outset of His ministry Jesus fasted 40 days. 
Fasting is never commanded in the New Testament. However it is interesting that all the most godly people in the Bible did it, including Hannah, David, Daniel, Moses, Elijah, Ezra, Barnabas, the Apostle Paul, the rest of the Apostles, John the Baptist, the early Church, and the Lord Jesus Christ. And not only do godly people do it, but God always seems to respond favorably to it. Anna fasted in the Temple and God responded by letting her eyes be among the first to see the Messiah. Jesus fasted at the outset of His public ministry and God gave Him the greatest earthly ministry by far than anyone has ever had. In Acts 13, the Church in Antioch prayed and fasted and out of that came the ministry of a missionary who spread the gospel through the known world and wrote almost a quarter of the New Testament! (Paul) The last instance of fasting in the Bible is when Paul and Barnabas fast over the selection of elders in all the churches. The result of that was that instead of Christianity dying out with the Apostles, it is now a worldwide kingdom that is well on its way to reaching every tongue, tribe, people, and nation.
And yet, fasting seems rare in the New Testament. We only know of one time that Jesus fasted. He did not even fast the night before His crucifixion – instead He had a feast. John’s disciples even questioned Jesus one time about why He did not fast more. (Matthew 9)
My guess as to why Jesus did not fast more, and why He did not command it, is because He lived in a religious culture where fasting existed as a mere ritual. And He was trying to teach the people that fasting as a religious ritual is a thing of the past. He called that an old wineskin that is not appropriate for this age in Matthew 9.
There is, however, a good kind of fasting that is appropriate. And that is the kind that Jesus did in Matthew 4. Here you will see that there is no question what Jesus was doing. He was re-enacting the experience of Israel in the desert. And the reason God allowed Israel to become hungry in the desert was to teach them to depend upon Him- to teach them that man does not live by bread alone but by the Word of God.
So the right kind of fasting is when you go without food in order to humble yourself – to remind yourself of your creatureliness and weakness and neediness and desperate condition, and for all of that to drive you to desperate dependence upon God. The appropriate times for fasting are either 1) in times of sorrow (especially the sorrow of repentance), or 2) in times of seeking something from God that is especially important to you. That is kind of an overview of fasting. If you want a fuller study of the subject of fasting listen to part three of the Walking in Unity series from Ephesians 4. Or you can read the current pastor’s blog.
Growth (Progressing in grace)
Flip back to Luke 2 and let’s take a look at number four.

Luke 2:52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

This is the fourth example we see from Jesus’ life. He made progress - mental progress, physical progress, social progress, and spiritual progress. Jesus was not born into this world with a mature body or a full education or even a full understanding of spiritual things. In His divine nature He knew all things, but in His human nature He had to learn how to crawl and then walk and then talk just like the rest of us. He had to learn how to get along with other people. And learning and memorizing Scripture was no easier for Him than it is for us. Jesus went through the painful, slow, long struggle of growth and learning and making progress over a period of years. He came into this world in weakness, and set an example for us by His progress and growth in every area of life. 
Do not ever imagine that you have ever arrived at some level where you no longer have great need of growth. If you are pretty much the same as you were a year ago that is not a good thing. If you are not making any progress in your besetting sins and the areas where you lack some virtue, then you need to redouble your efforts. Take some drastic measures and step up your fight in this warfare. 
It scares me when I ask someone, “What are you working on in your spiritual life right now?” and they say, “Oh nothing specific. I’m just kind of maintaining.” If you are not right now working intentionally on some very specific area of sin or spiritual weakness, then that means one of two things.: Either you are not even aware of the sins and weaknesses in your life, or you know about them and just do not really care that much. And both of those are disastrous for the Christian life. If Jesus Christ was not above growing and making progress, we certainly are not. If we claim to remain in Him we obligate ourselves to walk as He walked, and walking as He walked means making progress and growing.
Prayer (Planning extended Predetermined Places of Passionate, Persistent, Petitions, Pleas, Praises, and Prayers)
Let’s squeeze in one more - prayer. You cannot watch Jesus’ life very long without seeing Him pray. And He seemed to love every kind of prayer – everything from little sentence prayers to going to a special place and praying all night. He prayed for Himself, for His Disciples, for all believers, for little children who came to Him, for the world, for the people who murdered Him. He prayed about the kingdom of God.
In Matthew 25:11 He burst out in spontaneous praise. 

 Went places where He could have extended times of prayer
Most of us follow His example in praying short little sentence prayers throughout the day, but He also went away for extended times of prayer.

Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

Luke 5:16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. 

Luke 6:12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

Luke 9:18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say I am?"

Luke 9:28 About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.

Luke 11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciple

Jesus often had extended times of private prayer. Each of those passages tell us that He prayed, but then pull the curtain on His privacy so we do not get to see what it was like. One exception to that is John 18, where we get to be there with Jesus when He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He was crucified.

Go to a special place 

John 18:2 Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.

J.C. Ryle makes an interesting observation here about the fact that Jesus often went to a certain place for prayer. “May we not learn from this verse that there is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing wrong, in loving one place more than another, and choosing one place more than another for communion with God? Even our blessed Lord had one special place … more than other places, to which He often resorted. The common idea of some, that it matters not where or in what place we worship, and that it is unspiritual and wrong to care for one seat in church more than another, can hardly be reconciled with this verse.” So if you have a favorite pew, that is OK. And more importantly, if Jesus could pray better in some places than in others than that is something for us to take note of.
Jesus seemed to like to go up into the mountains. I can very much relate to that. There is no question that I pray best when I am alone in the mountains. A few months ago I went up some back roads in the mountains up by Buena Vista, built myself a fire, took my Bible and another book, and just spent all afternoon and later into the evening alone with God. I talked to Him while I was walking around gathering wood each time the fire died down, or while I was watching the fire, I read, then meditated, then prayed, then sang. I looked around and took in the spectacular mountains and the sky. I watched the sunset. And I can tell you – I love my house in Erie, and I have some wonderful times with the Lord in my study, but never like that. I think I can concentrate more on prayer while staring into a fire than I can with my eyes closed or in any other context. 
It is good to go to a special place to pray – even in your own house. I have a special place set up for daily prayer in my study, where my Bible and some commentaries on Psalms and several good devotionals and the Valley of Vision, and my prayers on the attributes of God are all within arm’s reach. I bought a comfortable chair so I can stay for a long time. And there is a lock on the door so I will not be disturbed. And I cannot pray anywhere in the house as well as I can pray there.
If we are going to walk as Jesus walked, then there should be times when we go away somewhere to pray. We go special places for vacation – why? So we will have a good vacation. How much more important is it to have a really good time of prayer than to have a really good vacation? You can and should pray everywhere, but some places are better than others.
So instead of sitting there right now wrestling with your conscience and racking your brain to come up with some flaw in my logic that would justify going on without following Jesus’ example of prayer, why not just give it a try? Why not make plans to go somewhere special for an extended time of prayer? What is the worst that could happen? If you go away for an afternoon with your Bible and a really good book and a pad and paper to some beautiful place and spend some extended time writing some prayers or a psalm, and it turns out not to be such a great experience, what have you lost? If you are like me you have blown hundreds of afternoons doing a lot worse than that. When you have lunch this afternoon, why not just pull out a calendar and plan a time and place?
And when you do it – do not worry about rattling through some huge long prayer list. The issue is not how many words you say to God; the issue is how much time you spend with Him, and how delightful that time is to you. So just go enjoy being in His presence. 
If you claim to be a Christian, that claim obligates you to walk as Jesus walked. And that means delighting in the will of God above your own impulses, and happily submitting to all the authorities He has placed over you. It means humbling yourself in weakness. It means eliminating all empty rituals from your life, so fasting and everything else you do is a genuine expression of the heart. It means always laboring to grow and progress in the Lord. And it means being devoted to all kinds of prayer.

Conclusion
I want to urge you to pick one of these five to focus your attention on this week. Which of these five needs the most urgent attention in your life right now? Is it submission (Preferring God’s will to your own impulses)? Is it humiliation (Perfecting Power in weakness - accepting your human limitations as a platform for the power of God)? Is it fasting (Putting away empty ritual, so that your fasting is a real humbling of yourself to help with earnestness in prayer or repentance)? Is it growth (Progressing rather than just coasting or sliding backwards)? Or is it prayer (Planning extended times alone with the Lord). Let’s each pick one and make that the focus of our walk with the Lord this week.

Knowing God & Loving People Part 4 Imitating Jesus (contd) 2:6b

Summary: Jesus’ life was a life of warfare. (#1-5 had to do with Jesus’ attitude and 5-10 with His actions in the warfare). 1) His role in the warfare (Jesus was immovable from faithfulness to His calling). We each have a unique commission from God, and that is the only thing that makes life important. Discern your calling by examining your tools and opportunities and desires. 2) Jesus was always alert. Thinking that Christianity should be easy shows a lack of alertness. Satan lulls you into overconfidence with good times and distracts you from the warfare with hard times. Willingness to suffer enables one to prefer God over relief. 3) The weapon is Scripture. Jesus used Scripture as an example for us. Use Scripture by properly interpreting it, and trusting the warnings and promises. 4) Avoid losing heart by considering how Jesus thought little of His suffering when He compared it to the joy set before Him (the presence and favor of God). 5) Recover from defeat through repentance. 

1 John 2:3-6 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to remain in him must walk as He walked.
 
Introduction
Review
A life of warfare
1.	His role in the war (calling)
Most people have no sense of calling
Jesus did
Everyone has a unique task
How to know your calling
Calling is the only thing that makes a task important
2.	His alertness in the war (Vigilance)
Christianity is hard because of the warfare
Alertness
Satan uses good times to lull you into over-confidence
Satan uses suffering to distract you from the battle
Willingness to suffer enables preference of God
3.	His weapon of war (Scripture)
Jesus used Scripture as an example for us
Must be used properly
Promises and warnings
4.	His endurance in the war (withstanding opposition)
Must consider Jesus’ endurance to avoid losing heart
The uniqueness of this kind of suffering
5.	Defeat in the war (and recovery)
Devotionals

Introduction
Even though we do not know a whole lot about David’s mighty men of valor, I have always been fascinated with them – especially Eleazar and Shammah. I can hardly imagine what it must have been like to walk into battle – march right up into the midst of an army of armed, trained killers, and fight them face to face with a sword. It is not surprising that in those OT battles, if one side started gaining an advantage, the other side would be quick to start retreating. If I am fighting for all I am worth, and my buddies are dropping like flies all around me and I can see our side is starting to be overwhelmed and overrun, I am going to look at this 230 lb Philistine war hero approaching me with his tree-trunk arms, and his huge sword still dripping with the blood of my best buddies, and I am going to think one thing “I wonder if I’m a faster runner than him.” Something just like that happened to Shammah. The Israelites fought valiantly, but they started to become overrun by the Philistines, and some of them started running. And once that happened, the others realized “If we couldn’t win with those guys, now that they are retreating we really don’t have a chance” and so they ran too. They all ran, except Shammah. According to 2 Sam.23:12, Shammah saw that the battle was turning against them, and things were getting ugly, and he saw all his comrades turn and run and his response was…

12 Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. 

He found a spot in that field that he was determined to defend. And he stationed himself in that spot, and took a stand.

11 When the Philistines banded together at a place where there was a field full of lentils, Israel's troops fled from them. 12 But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the LORD brought about a great victory.

He takes his stand and right away a couple Philistines fighters come up to him swinging, and WHAP, WHAP – they are both on the ground. The guy must have just been a buzz saw. Anyone who came near him lost an arm or a head or something. No matter what the Philistines did, Shammah would not budge. And when it was all said and done, and the whole thing was over, and the dust settled, Shammah was still standing. That earned Shammah third place among David’s mighty men, just below Eleazar. 
There is something in us that loves to see valor. We love stories of great courage and strength in battle. I think the Lord built that into us because this life is a war. We are engaged in a spiritual war that goes from the time you become a Christian until the day you die. And it is very important, when the battle is over and the dust clears, that you are still standing.

Eph.6:10-14 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. …13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then

Review
We have been studying verse by verse through the book of 1 John, and last week we came across verse 6 of chapter 2.

6 Whoever claims to remain in him must walk as He walked.

And we concluded that if the bottom line of our Christianity is the way Jesus walked, then it is pretty important to have an idea of how Jesus walked. It would be a good thing to have the deeds of Jesus that are most emphasized in Scripture all summarized in a list, so we can periodically check our lives against that list. So I went through the four gospels and have been compiling a list. And putting it all together, I came up with a list of about 19 or 20 categories of things Jesus did, and last week we looked at the first five in that list.
He submitted to the Father’s will
He humbled Himself, embraced frailty and weakness, and made His own neediness the platform that displayed the power of God.
He fasted
He grew and made progress
He prayed

A life of warfare
Those first five have to do mainly with Jesus’ attitude. Now I want to move on to five more categories in the list, and these five focus more on His actions; especially His actions in relationship to spiritual warfare. The life of Jesus was a life of constant war against Satan. In fact, that was the reason He came.

1 John 3:8 The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work.

And Jesus’ attack on Satan’s work was not just limited to the cross. Jesus battled Satan throughout His life. Lk.4:13 says Satan was always watching for an opportune time to attack Jesus. I assume “opportune time” means a time when Jesus was weak or distracted or in some kind of context where His guard might be down. Satan came after Him right at the very beginning of His ministry and never gave up until Jesus was dead. So now we are going to learn from Jesus how to carry out spiritual warfare.

His role in the war (calling)
The first thing you need to know if you are going to fight in a war is what your role is. You cannot carry out a war if all the soldiers in the army are just running around doing whatever seems best to them. Each soldier has to know exactly what his role is, and he needs to be faithful in carrying out that role. One of the things that really stands out in the way Jesus lived His life was His faithfulness to His calling. Jesus saw His life as a task the Father had given Him to carry out.

John 5:36 But I have a greater testimony than John's because of the works that the Father has given Me to accomplish. 

He was on a mission from God.
Most people have no sense of calling
Not many people have a strong sense of purpose or divine mandate for their lives. Most people are just killing time until they are dead. They do not have any specific task or assignment or commission or calling that they are working to carry out. They are just trying to find things to do to keep them occupied and as comfortable as possible between now and when their heart stops beating. They have no great purpose that drives them, no defining mission that gives meaning and purpose to their work. They just kind of take life as it comes, try to pick the best of all options when they face decisions, and that is about it. They might have some awareness of some general commands that God gave to all people, but they do not have any sense of being on a specific, unique mission from God that is different from anyone else’s mission.
And as a result their lives lack drive and inertia. “Inertia” is the tendency of an object in motion to resist being knocked off course. People without a sense of calling do not have that. They are easily bumped off whatever course they are on because there really is not anything special about that course other than it seemed like the best available option back when they got on it. So they get in school, drop out of school, start one career track, float into another one, dabble in this ministry then that ministry, a little of this, a little of that; and as soon as the path they are on begins to seem a little boring, or something else looks a little better, they are off in yet another direction. And the older they get the more their lives start to resemble the Israelites in the wilderness – wandering endlessly in circles and getting nowhere. If you walk from Egypt to the Promised Land it would take ten days. The Israelites wandered for 40 years and never got there. That is what a lot of people’s lives are like – decades of wandering and never getting anywhere.
Jesus did
But Jesus’ life was nothing like that. He was flexible, He was accessible, He was accommodating, but no one could ever knock Him off the course of His task. He could be flexible because God allows a lot of freedom in the way you go about fulfilling your calling. But Jesus never responded to anyone who tried to pull Him away from what the Father was leading Him to do. And it did not matter if it was a king or a close friend or a disciple or the entire nation of Israel. When Herod tried to pull Him off course, He said, “Tell that fox I’m busy.” When Peter tried to steer Him away from the cross, He said, “Get behind me, Satan!” When the Jewish people tried to make Him an earthly king prior to the cross, Jesus withdrew from them and took off somewhere else. When Satan himself tried to tempt Him to take another course, Satan ended up with his face in the dirt. Jesus would not be deterred from His task. He preached about the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of God only – nothing else.
Everyone has a unique task
In the book of Ephesians Paul refers to that specific, individualized calling as “a grace.” In chapter 3 he talks about his specific grace, or ministry that he received from God. And then in 4:7 he says that each one of us has received our own, individual, specific grace (or ministry, or calling) from Jesus Christ. Following in the steps of Christ means knowing that you are commissioned to your task, and having unstoppable, determined, devotion to the completion of that task.
How to know your calling
If you want to follow in Jesus’ steps, find out what your calling (grace) is. Examine your gifts, strengths, weaknesses, experiences, characteristics, and skills. Then, examine carefully your godliest and most spiritual desires, being very alert to whatever opportunities are available, and whichever opportunity matches up best with the tools God gave you and the desires God gave you – that is your calling. You have been officially commissioned by the Creator of this world to do that task. And you are not at liberty to bail out of that task ever – until the day you die, unless God calls you into something else.
Calling is the only thing that makes a task important
In order for your life to matter you need two things: You have to have an important job, and you have to do it well. Both are necessary. If you decided to get a mop and spend your life mopping I-25, even if you did an outstanding job you would be wasting your life because it is not an important task. And if you had the most important task there is and did a terrible job at it that would also be a wasted life. The only way not to waste your life is to have an important task and to do it well. And there is only one thing that determines how important a task is, and that is whether or not God gave you that task. If it came as an assignment from God it is eternally important – no matter what it is. And if it did not, it is meaningless, worthless, and pointless - no matter what it is. 

His alertness in the war (Vigilance)
So Jesus was faithful to carry out His task. And as He did so, He encountered constant opposition from Satan. And He faithfully resisted that opposition. That is spiritual warfare.
Christianity is hard because of the warfare
If you are scratching your head wondering why seemingly simple spiritual goals are so hard for you to reach, or why you find yourself falling into such stupid sins, or why the struggles in ministry can be so relentless – it is no mystery. We are in a war. So often, after a failure someone will say, “I am such a terrible Christian.” Or, “I am such a terrible mother.” Or, I am such a terrible leader.” It is almost like they think the Christian life is so easy that the only way a person could fail is if he is a terrible Christian. That may sound like humility, but many times I think it is just plain ignorance of the magnitude and intensity of this war we are in. What do we think – that our opponent in this war is such a pushover that the only way we would ever suffer a defeat is if we are terrible Christians? The strongest believers in history suffered horrible defeats at the hands of Satan. Sometimes even excellent soldiers are casualties in wars.
Alertness 
And imagining that you will be safe just because you are not a terrible Christian is really a lack of alertness. You are just not alert to the real danger. And if you are expecting mostly success as a result of moderate effort, you just are not awake to reality. And if you do not wake up from that stupor, it probably will not be long before you suffer a really disastrous defeat. Extreme opposition and testing is not the exception – it is the norm.

1 Peter 4:12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.

We need to expect opposition and realize we are up against an enemy who is extremely tricky, who has deceived and brought down the greatest of saints in the past, who is incredibly wicked, and who is absolutely relentless. Jesus repeatedly warned us to be alert, and ready, and to watch and pray lest we fall. Why do you think He was so exercised to call us to alertness and warn us? It was because He was in the middle of the war, and He knew firsthand how dangerous the enemy is.
Jesus never took a break from spiritual warfare. The enemy could never catch Him off guard – even when he tried to use Jesus’ closest friends. Jesus was always alert, always sober, always vigilant. He was often physically tired, weary, sometimes burdened, sorrowful, in need of rest - but He never let down His guard. And again, it was because He loved the will of the Father so much that He was constantly on guard against anything that threatened to push Him outside of God’s will. 
When you look at Jesus’ testing in the desert you get a feel for how seriously Jesus took sin. He would rather die than commit even the slightest, smallest, most harmless sin. Jesus would rather die of starvation than take a bite of bread out of a wrong motive.
I do not know how it is for you, but for me – so many of my failures come from lack of vigilance. So many times when I fall into sin it is not that I am consciously thinking, “Hmmm – should I choose the pleasure of this sin over the joy of fellowship with God, or should I forfeit fellowship with God for this sin? All things considered, I think the sin will pay off more in the long run, so I think I will chose that and go ahead and forfeit nearness to God.” So many times when I fall into sin if you could hook up speakers into my mind you would not hear that whole reasoning process. You know what you would hear? A dial tone. Nothing. It is like my whole spirit and mind just say, “I’m going on break” and they go to sleep, and the flesh just takes over.” And by the time my spirit wakes up from its sleep, my flesh is in the middle of some sin.
Satan uses good times to lull you into over-confidence
Satan has two basic strategies for getting you to let your guard down. He uses good times to lull you into over-confidence. He uses suffering to distract you from the battle. So watch out in times of great victory and in times of suffering. That is when He came after Jesus, isn’t it? The temptation in the wilderness came immediately after the glorious moment at Jesus’ baptism when the Father spoke audibly from heaven about how well-pleased He was with Jesus. Jesus had to have felt invincible after that. And it was right then that Satan came after Him.
Satan uses suffering to distract you from the battle
And that was also to a time of weakness and suffering. Jesus was in the wilderness, alone, weak and starving. Using suffering to get you to take your focus off the battle is the oldest trick in the book. If Satan can get you to fixate on your suffering, and to focus most of your attention on relief, then he can get you to lay down your weapons and defenses and become vulnerable to defeat. If, when pain comes into your life, the main thoughts going through your head are- “I can’t stand this.” - “Why does this have to happen to me?” - “When will this be over?” - “This is horrible – I hate this” - “How can I get out of this?” - “How can I avoid this next time?” Satan can do anything he wants and you will be oblivious.
Watch out for pet peeves. If you have a lot of pet peeves, that is not a good sign. If you are easily irritated by every little inconvenience, or you are always offended by people failing to do what you think they should do, or you find that a major factor in a lot of your decision-making is the avoidance of unpleasantness and discomfort; you probably are not following Jesus’ example with regard to how important avoidance of suffering is in your priorities. 
Keep your guard up when suffering comes – it is a diversion. Do not fall for it. When suffering comes, instead of your first question being, “How can I get relief?” let it be, “Uh, Oh – what is Satan up to this time?” “Where is he going to attack?” 
Every time we suffer we should ask two questions: What is God doing? What is Satan doing? They both have a purpose in your suffering. Satan’s purpose in afflicting Job was to get him to curse God. God’s purpose in afflicting Job was to prove Job’s faith. Be alert to both, and cooperate with what God is doing and resist what Satan is doing. That is the example Jesus set for us.
We are going to find, as we move through this list, that a number of these are related to #2 from last week – Jesus’ willingness to suffer. A lot of our sin is due to our desire for pleasure. But a lot of our sin is also due to our desire to avoid pain. If you become too afraid of pain, Satan can accomplish almost anything he wants in your life just by threatening some sort of pain – physical pain, humiliation, scary circumstances, etc. That is why when Peter tells us to follow Jesus’ example, so much of it has to do with Jesus’ example with regard to suffering.

1 Peter 2:19-21 It is commendable if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God… 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.

If you can handle suffering you can defeat sin, because suffering is the only thing Satan can threaten you with. And the way to learn to handle pain is to find a joy that is so powerful that it makes any pain endurable.
 
His weapon of war (Scripture) 
When Jesus has that epic showdown with Satan when He is tempted in the wilderness, Jesus wins the battle, and He does it by means of Scripture. He keeps quoting Deuteronomy from memory until Satan finally gives up.
Jesus used Scripture as an example for us
Think about that. Why does Jesus need to quote Moses? Everything Jesus said was God’s Word. He could have made up His own stuff. But He quoted Scripture because He was setting an example for us. Jesus lived his life relying on, trusting in, and drawing strength from the Word of God. And He did that as an example for us.
Of course Jesus also relied on His own words. He warned, encouraged, comforted, instructed, reproved, commended, strengthened, and guided people with His own words. And we should follow His example. We should also warn, encourage, comfort, instruct, reprove, commend, strengthen, and guide people (and ourselves) with Jesus’ words. Jesus presented His teaching as the very Word of God and required that all people everywhere submit to it or perish. And we should present Jesus’ teaching as the Word of God and require that all people everywhere submit to it or perish. It is the Word of God that gives us power in ministry, and the Word of God that gives us power in our own battle against sin.
Must be used properly
Let’s be careful not to over-simplify that though. The Bible is not some book of magic that you can just read and automatically win the battle. Jesus did not just throw out some random verses. They were passages of Scripture that applied to the exact context Jesus was in, and were correctly and insightfully interpreted and applied by Jesus. Just quoting Scripture, if it is not properly applied, can actually lead you into sin. In fact, miss-applying Scripture was one of the strategies Satan used to try to draw Jesus into sin. Satan uses Scripture more than a lot of Christians use it.
Promises and warnings
It is also significant that in all three temptations Jesus quoted either from a promise or a warning. Satan tried tempting Jesus with pleasure, and Jesus responded by quoting God’s promise to satisfy the cravings of the soul with His Word. Satan tried tempting Jesus with presumption and idolatry, and Jesus responded to both by quoting from the warning section in Deuteronomy 6.
When we fight against sin we need to focus on the promises and warnings of Scripture. (And really, that is just one category. The warnings are nothing but negative promises – promises of judgment.) The primary way that we are to relate to God is by believing His promises. God promises to make it worth your while to do what is right. And He promises to make you regret it if you do what is wrong. And so we defeat sin by persuading our souls to believe those promises. 
Whatever sin you are struggling with, there are promises in Scripture that will help you gain victory. And when you use that method for gaining victory it brings maximum glory to God. If you defeat a sin in your life just by trying harder to build up your resolve and self-discipline and strength, then your success brings glory to you. But if your method of defeating sin is to cling to and rest in and trust and delight in some promise God has made, then when you succeed your success shows God to be reliable and His promises to be preferable, and that glorifies Him rather than you. That is why God made that method the only method that will actually work. So always use God’s promises (positive and negative) to defeat sin. I have begun compiling a list of promises from Scripture arranged by category, so you can look in the table of contents and see, “For this sin, or this particular virtue you are striving for – go to these promises.” 

His endurance in the war (withstanding opposition)
Number four is another one that grows out of Jesus’ willingness to suffer. When Hebrews 12 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, and then goes on to describe His example that He set for us, one of the things it brings up is Jesus’ endurance in the face of opposition.
Must consider Jesus’ endurance to avoid losing heart
Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, … 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons

The implication is if you do not give careful consideration and deep thought to Jesus endurance of opposition, then you will grow weary and lose heart.

The uniqueness of this kind of suffering
Hostility from people is an incredibly hard thing to deal with. It is a unique kind of suffering. Some people can easily endure all kinds of physical pain, but the minute someone turns red and yells in their face, it is all over. They either mimic that person’s sin and become hostile right back to them, or they become cowards and abandon whatever it was they were doing in God’s service.
And yet the standard for us as Christians is very high. God expects us to be able to endure severe opposition. Look at verse 4. You have not even resisted to the point of shedding your blood. These people had been persecuted, ridiculed, mistreated, thrown in prison, had their houses ransacked, their property unjustly confiscated, and the writer says, “What are you whining about? You’re not even bleeding!”
How do you stand firm in a context like that? Some of us can hardly endure a cross word from our spouse, or being cut off in traffic. How do you persevere in courage when everyone is opposing you? You do it by looking to Christ and giving careful consideration to the ways He responded to opposition.
So let’s take a moment and do that. Jesus endured extreme opposition from sinful men, and He did it by a process in which the joy set before Him caused Him to scorn (think little of) His suffering. At first that does not sound right.
How can he say that Jesus thought little of His suffering? How can you be so upset about something that just thinking about it causes you to sweat blood, and at the same time say you are thinking little of that thing? Was the suffering and shame of the cross little in Jesus’ eyes or big? The answer is it was HUGE – but in comparison with the joy set before Him, it was small. He thought a lot of it, but in comparison with the joy set before Him He thought nothing of it. The pain was massive, but as massive as it was, it was dwarfed by the joy.
The main temptation Satan threw at Jesus was the temptation to bypass the suffering. And the bigger the suffering is the more tempting it is to opt for some sinful way out. And so Jesus defeated the enemy by fixing His eyes on a joy so gigantic that the suffering became minor in comparison. The way to defeat sin in your life is through preference. You cannot have lasting success against sin until you can find a joy that is more thrilling to your heart than the pleasure of the sin. You cannot win the battle by mere resistance. You can only win long-term by preference. And that only happens when you have experiences with the presence of God that are delightful enough and frequently enough to really convince your soul that nearness to Him is not worth forfeiting for the pleasure of some sin or the avoidance of some pain. 
So Jesus’ suffering was enormous, but in comparison with the joy set before Him Jesus considered His suffering small. What was the joy set before Him? - Being seated at the right hand of the throne of God. In other words, nearness to and favor from the Father. 
Now, how does that keep you from growing weary and losing heart when you wake up in the morning with a back so sore that you can barely get out of bed? Or so depressed that you can hardly function? Or when the people at work make your life miserable? Here’s how: Any time you suffer in any way, if you respond to that suffering the right way it will bring about greater nearness to God and more favor from God. “How do you know that?” Because of verses that follow. Verses 4-13 go on to explain that our suffering is discipline from the hand of a loving Father. And that discipline is designed to cause us to share in God’s holiness (v.10) and to produce a harvest of righteousness and peace (v.11). So if you respond in the right way to suffering, it will increase your holiness, righteousness, and peace. And the result of that will be greater nearness to God, and greater favor from God. And responding in the right way simply means submitting to what God is doing and preferring the presence and favor of God above anything – including relief from the suffering.
So every time you suffer in any way, think this way: The presence and favor of God is so wonderful and delightful and satisfying that it is worth absolutely any price to get it, and this discomfort I am going through right now will get it for me. When Jesus looked at the agony of the cross on the one hand, and the joy of the presence and favor of God on the other hand, He said, “No contest. The severity of this suffering is nothing compared to the joy of nearness to God and favor from God!” And fixing our eyes on Jesus and considering Him means following His example in our attitude toward our suffering. You look at this child who is making your life so hard (or husband or boss or physical problem or loss or whatever), and you line it up alongside the joy of greater nearness to God and more favor from God, and you say, “No contest! When you put them side by side it causes you to scorn your suffering (regard it as comparatively nothing when measured against the joy set before you).
And when you do that, when your affections actually prefer God’s presence and favor over relief from suffering, that glorifies God. 

Defeat in the war (and recovery) 
So we learn a lot from Jesus about how to carry on this warfare and win the battles, don’t we? But what about when you lose the battles? What about all those countless times when the enemy defeats us, and we fall into sin? Then what? It seems like that would be the one time when we are kind of left on our own. What can we learn about how to recover from failure and defeat from the example of a perfect man who never lost a single battle and never failed? Is that just an area where we can follow in Jesus’ steps?
No – Jesus left us an example even in this area. And if that leaves you scratching your head then you are not alone. This really came as a shock to John the Baptist. I doubt there was much of anything that ever surprised John the Baptist. John was the product of a miraculous conception, he was the first true prophet in 400 years, and he had probably known Jesus for 30 years. He performed miracles and was the most important spokesman for God ever born. He had seen it all. It could not have been very easy to shock John the Baptist. But in Matthew 3 Jesus managed to do it. John was baptizing people with a baptism of repentance – a baptism that was a public act of repentance. And one day the perfect, spotless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Creator of the universe shows up and gets in line to undergo a baptism of repentance. And that just about blew the circuits in John’s brain. John even resisted at first and Jesus had to command him to go ahead and do it.
John did not like the idea, because he was afraid it would make it look like Jesus was a sinner just like everyone else. But that turned out to be a non-problem because when Jesus was baptized the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit descended in visible form, and the voice of God spoke audibly and confirmed that Jesus was the Son of God and that the Father was well-pleased with Him. So God made sure that when Jesus submitted to a baptism of repentance it was not because Jesus needed to repent of anything. Jesus is the sinless, perfect Son of God – no question about that. But He submitted to John’s baptism of repentance in order to set an example for us. Jesus came to identify with sinners, and to bear our sin, so He even submitted to an act of repentance as an example for us.
So how should you respond in this warfare when you suffer a defeat? Repent. The way to respond to sin in your life is always through repentance. Turn back to God with all your heart. And He will turn your defeat into a victory.

Jeremiah 15:19 Therefore this is what the LORD says: "If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me

God delights in taking the ash heap and ruins of our worst defeats and turning them around so that they are a victory for us and a defeat for the enemy. In Micah 7 the people had suffered a horrible defeat at Satan’s hands, and had fallen into sin. And when they repented God turned it around so that the enemy was the one covered with shame.

Micah 7:2-19 The godly have been swept from the land; not one upright man remains. All men lie in wait to shed blood; each hunts his brother with a net. 
7 But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. 8 Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. 9 Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the LORD's wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness. 10 Then my enemy will see it and will be covered with shame
18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. 19 You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. 

Benediction: Ephesians 6:10-13 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 

Knowing God & Loving People Part 5 Imitating Jesus (contd) 2:6b

Summary: Jesus’ love for the Father expressed itself in love for people in nine ways. Jesus was satisfied in God alone, but that did not drive Him into isolation because while He did not need to be loved by people to be happy, He did need to love those the Father loved in order to be happy. Jesus joined in God’s affections by grieving and rejoicing over that which grieved or delighted God. This is why Jesus preferred giving to receiving. He especially loved those God especially loves (believers, the lowly and children, and repentant sinners). He was a small group leader, performed miracles of compassion, gave up His rights for others, subjected himself to humiliation, pursued joy and enjoyed life, and was delighted by corporate worship. 

Introduction
Satisfied with God alone, yet did not isolate self
Don’t start with Jesus’ love for people out of context
Joined in God’s affections
Grieving
Rejoicing
Loving people with His love
Jesus preferred loving to being loved
Especially loved believers and the lowly
Especially loved believers
Especially loved the lowly
Especially repentant sinners
Was a small group leader
Performed miracles
Draw attention to them
Miracles that demonstrated love and compassion (we should demonstrate love and compassion)
Emphasis of spiritual needs over physical
Gave up rights for others
Didn’t grasp rights php.2
Enslaved Himself in service
Humiliation
Pursued joy
Enjoyed life
Delighted in corporate worship and fellowship
Conclusion

1 John 2:3-6 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to remain in him must walk as He walked.

Introduction
When we studied v.6 I decided we needed to do a brief study of the way Jesus walked before moving on to v.7, so today is the third in a 3-week study of the walk of Jesus that we are to imitate. I went through the gospels and epistles and made a list of all the things Jesus did (at least the ones that are most emphasized in Scripture), and grouped them all in a list of 19 categories. The first five had to do with Jesus’ attitude:
1)	He submitted to the Father’s will
2)	He humbled Himself, embraced frailty and weakness, and made His own neediness the platform that displayed the power of God.
3)	He fasted
4)	He grew and made progress
5)	He prayed
The next five focused more on Jesus’ actions – particularly in reference to spiritual warfare. 
6)	He was utterly committed to His calling and could not be sidetracked from it in the slightest. He knew His role in the war and was faithful to carry it out.
7)	He was constantly alert to the warfare and always took it seriously.
8)	He relied on proper interpretation and application of Scripture for victory in the warfare – trusting in God’s promises and warnings.
9)	He was undeterred by opposition. He was able to think little of His suffering because He compared it with the joy of God’s presence and favor, and He knew suffering would bring Him to a greater experience of God’s presence and favor. 
10)	He was baptized with John’s baptism of repentance – leaving us an example of how to recover from defeat in the warfare. He was never defeated, but He taught us that when we suffer defeat we can see God turn our defeats into victories if we repent.
And that brings us to the third portion of this list. The first five were Jesus’ attitude toward God. The next five were Jesus’ actions with regard to the warfare. The rest all have to do with Jesus’ actions with regard to loving people.

Satisfied with God alone, yet did not isolate self 
Don’t start with Jesus’ love for people out of context
Everybody knows that Jesus loved people. But it is a mistake to focus first (or only) on Jesus’ love for people. In our world people think kindness and mercy and compassion toward people was all there was to Jesus. But the love Jesus showed to people is meaningless apart from the context of how that love for people was an expression of His love for the Father. And if you don’t understand that connection - if your love for people is not a conscious expression of love for God, then one of two things will happen: People will become a distraction to your relationship with God, so that your loving them actually pulls your attention away from God, or people will simply be excluded from your relationship with God. Your walk with the Lord will become a private affair between you and Him and other people will be left out of the picture. And the way to avoid those errors is to learn from Jesus’ example about the proper connection between loving God and loving people.
And that connection is category #11. We found two weeks ago that Jesus’ food and drink, was doing the will of God the Father.

John 4:34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

Jesus didn’t need anyone to be nice to Him or to- pat Him on the back or- be considerate or- treat Him a certain way or- show Him love in order for Him to be happy. Fellowship with the Father alone was enough for Him. It was like tasty, filling, satisfying food to His soul.
Listen to what Jesus said at the moment when Jesus knew all His closest friends would abandon Him in His greatest hour of need: 

John 16:32 You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

The Father’s love was enough. It was all He needed for His joy. However, that did not cause Him to withdraw from people, because as He drew near to God, the God He was drawing near to was a God who loves people. So the closer Jesus was to the heart of the Father the more He was compelled to love people.
When Jesus said “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me” in Jn.4:34, the context of Jesus saying that was when Jesus wasn’t interested in eating lunch because His soul was so satisfied after having spent that time ministering to a repulsive outcast.
Ministry to people was what nourished and sustained Him, and it satisfied His soul like food satisfies the stomach. Ministry for the sake of ministry doesn’t satisfy the hungry soul. But ministry that is an expression of love for people – a deep affection for people that exists because of God’s love for those people and your nearness to the heart of God - that kind of ministry will satisfy the longings and hunger pangs of your soul.
So, did Jesus need people to be happy? Yes and no. Jesus did not need people to show love to Him in order for Him to be happy. However, He did need to show love to the people His Father loved in order for Him to be happy, because fullness of joy comes from loving the people God loves because God loves them.
So on the one hand we follow Jesus’ example by not looking to people’s love for us for our joy. If you become dependent upon people such that you can’t be happy when people disappoint you or leave you or fail to love you; if when people reject you or mistreat you or abandon you, you find it impossible to find joy, that means you were looking to them and not to God for your joy and that is idolatry. And when you fall into that kind of error, sometimes God will keep on taking people away from you or keep letting people disappoint you over and over until you learn to be satisfied in Him alone as the people in your life come and go. Then you will have a joy that no one can touch.
But on the other hand we also follow His example of not withdrawing from people and becoming monks. If you are the type who just wants private fellowship with God, and you don’t care to be around people then you aren’t really having much fellowship with God. You can’t claim to be close to God while having a heart toward people that is at odds with God’s heart.
So if you wake up on Sunday mornings and it is all you can do to drag yourself out of the house to come to church, you need to strive to imitate the heart of Jesus whose food and drink was ministry to people. If you wake up and you are tired and weak, then what you need is strength and energy. And strength and energy come from eating food. And the food that will nourish and strengthen and energize your soul is ministry to people that flows out of your love for God. So when you wake up dead tired on a Sunday morning you should say, “Man, I’m tired – I need to get to church where I can love some folks and pour out my heart in serving the people God loves, so I can get some strength.”

Joined in God’s affections 
Another category where Jesus’ love for the Father found its expression in love for people was in His affections – the things that grieved or angered Him and the things that delighted Him.
Grieving 
Jesus was a man of sorrows. But His sorrows were not mainly connected to hardship. We don’t see a lot of verses that say, “And Jesus was grieved, because the strap on His brand new sandals kept pulling out. No. When circumstances were hard (which they were throughout most of His ministry), or when people sinned against Him, inconvenienced Him, slighted Him, ignored Him, betrayed Him, beat Him, or crucified Him, He responded with patience… - and love. He prayed for them, taught them, fed them, pleaded with them, had compassion on them, loved them, served them, and died for them.
But when people sinned against the Father He was infuriated. When they desecrated His Father’s house He literally put a whip to their backs.

John 2:16 He said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" 

Do something against Him and He responds with softness and patience. But violate His Father’s house and He responds with violent anger.
Jesus’ anger always rose up out of His love. He was angry about the Temple because of how much He loved the Father- and because of His love for people. The Temple was supposed to be a place where Gentiles could come and approach God in prayer. But instead they were being ripped off and turned away and taken advantage of and misled. 
Jesus’ hottest anger was reserved for false teachers – both because they misrepresented God and because they harmed people. Jesus’ rebuke of the false teachers in Mt.23 is absolutely fierce. He had to have been shouting, “Woe (damned) are you Pharisees… hypocrites…blind guides…whitewashed tombs full of every kind of wickedness…you blind fools…you snakes – prophet killers” I don’t think He was using a Mr. Rogers voice when He said all that.
There is only one time when the gospel writers actually use the word “anger” to describe Jesus’ emotions. It was when the disciples were preventing the little children from coming to Him.

Mark 10:14 When Jesus saw this, he was angry. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them

The thing that touched Jesus’ emotions most deeply was when the people He so dearly loved were cut off from grace.
Rejoicing
So Jesus’ anger and sorrow reflected His love for God, and so did His joy. His joyful outburst of praise in Lk.10 came from His delight in God’s plan to hide the truth from the wisest and reveal it to little children. 

Loving people with His love
Jesus was a man of great joy. He spoke a lot about His joy and His desire that we experience His joy.
I made the point a minute ago that the highest joy comes from loving the people God loves because He loves them. Let me show you that from Scripture. Look at v.11. This is an amazing verse.

John 15:11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Does that capture anybody’s interest? – The prospect of having the very joy of the Lord Jesus Christ in you, and having that joy be made complete in you? Anybody want that?
How do you get it? Look at the beginning of the sentence: “I have told you this (referring to v.10) so that my joy may be in you…” So the way to have the joy of Jesus Christ in your heart is through… - whatever it is He just said in v.10.

10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.

He told us that so we could have His joy. So to get Jesus’ joy (which is the greatest joy there is), and to have it be make complete in you, you must obey His command. So what is His command exactly?

12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 

There are a lot of varieties of joy, and a lot of ways to get joy, but the deepest, highest, greatest kind of joy comes from loving people with His love.

Jesus preferred loving to being loved
That is why Jesus preferred loving people over being loved by people. He preferred that because He enjoyed the blessedness that came from it. And He taught us to have that same motivation.

Acts 20:35 we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

The word “blessed” means “having cause for joy.” You have greater cause for joy when you give love than when you receive it.
When your focus is on being treated well by people it is a guaranteed destroyer of your joy. You are not in control of how well people love you, and so if your joy is dependent upon that, then when people fail to love you, you are powerless to maintain joy. And your life degenerates into a pile of resentment toward everyone who fails to love you in the right way. But if your joy comes from being the tool God uses to love others – that you can control. Which means you can have as much joy as you want all the time.

Especially loved believers and the lowly 
So Jesus was satisfied in God alone which translated into love for people because God loves people. So Jesus loved deeply, and without prejudice or favoritism. Although that is not to say He loved everyone exactly the same. And that brings us to #13.
Especially loved believers
Jesus especially loved the people of God. He loved them like family.

Matthew 12:47-50 Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." 48 He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

If you are going to follow in Jesus’ steps that will mean living a life in which spiritual relationships mean more to you than blood relationships.
Loving people is meaningless unless you love them because God loves them. And God especially loves His people. So if you find yourself having a hard time having a special, deeper kind of affection for believers, than your heart is far from His. 
Especially loved the lowly 
Anyone marginalized by society got special love from Jesus – especially kids.
As we saw a moment ago, the only time in His whole life when the Bible uses the word “anger” to describe Jesus was when they were keeping the children from coming to Him.

Matthew 18:5 Whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.

When we come here on Sunday morning, if we want to welcome Jesus into our worship service then we had better be down on the floor taking the children into our arms and welcoming them. If you are the type that gets irritated at a crying baby or can’t stand it when little kids act like little kids, it could be that you are hindering the presence of Christ in our church. Jesus especially loved the lowly, the outcasts, the unlovely, and the children.
Especially repentant sinners
Another category of lowly people is repentant sinners. In human religion there are certain kinds of sin that are considered so defiling that they are essentially unforgivable. If you have been involved in them you are forever a second-class kind of person. But for Jesus the issue was never the type of sin people had committed, but rather whether or not they were repentant. And so you see Jesus always freely welcoming and forgiving and loving repentant sinners – even sinners who had been really bad.
If we want to follow in Jesus’ steps we will stop assessing people based on which sins they struggle with or have committed in the past, and start assessing people only on the basis of one thing – are they repentant or unrepentant? If a prostitute or drunkard or death-row criminal came to Jesus in repentance, He would immediately and completely forgive them and welcome them. But if an upstanding, morally impressive man came with some unrepentant greed in His heart, Jesus would send Him away. We follow Jesus’ example by making repentance or unrepentance the only issue in whether we welcome sinners.

Was a small group leader 
Another way Jesus expressed His love for God through love for people was by being a small group leader. If you study all the deeds of Jesus this is one you can’t miss. Most of the time when you think of Jesus’ ministry you think, Jesus was primarily a preacher. But He probably put more time into His ministry as a small group leader than His preaching ministry. And far more people were converted through His small group than through His preaching. Jesus’ model for ministry was to devote most of His time to discipling 12 men – three of whom He gave special attention to.
If you think your ministry is insignificant because you don’t have a world-wide outreach, remember that Jesus didn’t either. His ministry was very localized. He did preach to large crowds, but most of them didn’t listen, and most were not converted. His effectiveness came through the small group of 12 that He poured His time into. Aspiring to become a small group leader would be a great way to follow Jesus’ example, but also realize that every one of you has a small group of people among whom you either have or could have some spiritual influence. Take that very seriously.

Performed miracles 
 “Surely that’s not an area where we are to follow His example. Jesus told the Apostles to do that, but non-Apostles are never commanded to do that. We don’t have the power to perform miracles, so how do we follow Jesus’ example with miracles?” Three ways:

Draw attention to them
First, Jesus pointed people to His miracles to prove that He was the Messiah. That is how He proved His Messiahship to John the Baptist when he had doubts in Mt.11. When John was thrown in prison and started to doubt he sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He was really the Messiah in Mt.11. So we follow His example by pointing people to His miracles as proof of who He was – especially the miracle of the resurrection.

Miracles that demonstrated love and compassion (we should demonstrate love and compassion)
A great majority of Jesus’ miracles were acts of compassion with regard to people’s suffering. Jesus had a lot of options with regard to how He could prove His power. He could have re-arranged the stars, or levitated buildings, or turned the Sea of Galilee into glass, or whatever. But He chose to mainly heal people. He chose acts of divine power that illustrated divine love and compassion.

Emphasis of spiritual needs over physical
And we follow in His steps by showing love and compassion to the weak and sick and poor and needy. Jesus is the model for true compassion. And perhaps the most important principle about compassion that we learn from Jesus is that He always emphasized spiritual needs over physical needs. Jesus focused most of His ministry efforts on the interested. He didn’t spend a lot of time on the disinterested. After He fed the 5000 one meal, and they came the next day wanting more free food, He refused because it wasn’t helping them receive His Word.
This is why nothing upset Jesus more than false teachers – because nobody does more harm to people than false teachers. If spiritual issues are more important that physical issues then murderers and rapists and thieves and muggers do not harm people as much as false teachers.
That’s why I would rather give my money to missions than to the Red Cross. True love is not content to just make people comfortable while they go to hell. We should care about all kinds of suffering, but true love will care more about eternal peril than temporal peril.
Gave up rights for others 
Didn’t grasp rights Php.2
For #16 in our list we return again to Php.2. One of the chief characteristics of Jesus that we are told to imitate is the giving up of His rights.

Philippians 2:5-7 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the very form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the very form of a servant 

All the glories and honors and delights of being God in heaven were rightfully His. He had every right to remain right where He was, and was not obligated in any way to give up any of it. But from Jesus’ example we learn that love is eager to give up rights for the benefit of others. 

1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Ephesians 5:2 and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Giving up yourself for someone else means giving up things that would bring you pleasure because you prefer the greater pleasure of loving that person. 
No doubt one of the reasons God gave us so many freedoms is so we would have something precious to give to those we love. Just like with material things, God gave us private ownership instead of a communistic system so there could be such a thing as generosity – we can give to people. And it is the same way with your freedoms. If I have the God-given right to behave in a certain way, but I can benefit you by setting aside that freedom, then when I set it aside you can see how much I love you.
There are two classic passages in Scripture that speak at length about giving up freedoms for the sake of a weaker brother: Romans 14-15 and 1 Corinthians 10. And both of those passages appeal to the example of Christ.
 
Romans 15:1-3 We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. 2 Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. 3 For even Christ did not please himself… 

1 Corinthians 10:32-33 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God-- 33 even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. 11:1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. 

One of the questions we ask every elder and deacon candidate is, “If you drink alcohol, would you be willing to give that up for the sake of a weaker brother?” And any answer other than, “Of course!” is not acceptable. When I ask someone that and their face turns red and they say, “That’s my RIGHT!” - and then they go off on a rant about legalism and freedoms and all that; that person is disqualified for spiritual leadership- not because he drinks, but because he doesn’t understand love.
Enslaved Himself in service
Very often, when I talk to people about giving up some freedom for the sake of a weaker brother, the answer comes back: “That would make me a slave to his preferences.” But what does Philippians 2 say?

Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who … 7 but emptied himself, taking the very form of a slave

Jesus didn’t recoil from the idea of being a slave to others. He put a towel around His waist and performed the most menial act of the lowest slave by washing everyone’s feet. That is literally the 1st century equivalent of a doormat. And then He said:

John 13:15 I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

If we are going to walk in Jesus’ steps we are going to have to serve one another as slaves.

Humiliation 
And if the idea of being a slave is just too humiliating for you, you are really not going to like this next one. Number 17 in the list is Jesus subjected Himself to humiliation. He not only gave up the honor and glory of being worshipped by all the angels and magnificent, awesome beings of heaven in order to take upon Himself the humiliation of becoming a weak, lowly, dependent, needy creature; going from the very throne of heaven to crying in a manger and needing someone to change His diapers. (The humiliation of becoming human was already an infinite descent.) But He didn’t stop there. He went down even lower, and took a place among the most despised of men. It is humiliating to be rejected by your own people. It is humiliating for the most respected leaders to publicly call you a heretic and accuse you of being demon possessed. It is humiliating to have your own family decide you are insane. It is humiliating to have all your best friends abandon you in your time of need, and to have the leader of them publicly deny even knowing you. The degree of disdain people had for Jesus is unbelievable. His life ended with the people screaming for His blood. They were spitting on Him and mocking Him and beating Him, and they mocked and jeered and joked as He hung naked on the cross.
We all know what it is like to be humiliated. Not many of us know as much about what it means to voluntarily subject yourself to humiliation that you don’t deserve. But that is what Jesus calls us to. We are called to join Him in His humiliation and shame.

Hebrews 13:13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.

Jesus is outside the camp. And we have the option of remaining in the camp or going out there with Him. When the conversation at school or work turns against the things of God, and you are faced with the decision of speaking up for Christ or just keeping quiet; you can stay there inside the camp where everyone will welcome you as long as you go along with them, or you can go out there and stand with the One they are mocking. And you can receive the unspeakable privilege of bearing some of His disgrace and enduring some of His suffering.
Much of the Church today doesn’t want to bear any disgrace. There are a lot of Christians who think that is a hindrance to the gospel. They figure, “If the world thinks we are a bunch of morons or lunatics, then we will never reach them for Christ. So we have to convince them that Christianity is respectable,” so they take the offensive stuff out. Let’s modify Genesis 1 so they won’t think we are unscientific. Let’s keep quiet about repentance and hell, and divine wrath, and election and predestination – or anything else they might not like. Let’s not say much about the miracles. Let’s become respectable in their eyes.
And the writer of Hebrews says, “No, let’s go stand with Him outside the camp and bear the disgrace He bore. And let’s do our evangelism by calling people to leave the camp and join us out there with Christ so they can bear His disgrace too.”

Pursued joy 
By now some of you might be thinking, “Man, this following Christ thing sounds like misery. Do we just have to be miserable in this life if we want to be Christians?” Well, what do we learn from the example of Christ? According to Hebrews 12, why did He endure the shame of the cross? For the joy set before Him!
Number 18 in the list is this – if we are going to follow Jesus’ example, we are going to have to live our lives pursuing joy. Jesus’ main pursuit was to seek joy from the Father. And that was not restricted to what would happen after His resurrection either. He ministered to the woman at the well because He wanted joy. That ministry was like food to His soul. He called us to love people so that His joy might be in us. If He wasn’t very happy then why would He say that His goal was for us to experience His joy? He was happy, and His love compelled Him to want us to know the happiness that He knew.
Enjoyed life
Jesus enjoyed the pleasures of life. When He slept on the boat during the storm, Mk.4:38 says He was sleeping on a cushion. Some monk in a monastery might read that and say, “Doesn’t He know anything about self-denial?” Self-denial for the sake of the joy of loving people is a good thing. But self-denial just for the sake of making yourself uncomfortable is not a Christ-like thing to do. Why did Jesus have a cushion? I’m going to go way out on a theological limb here and suggest that it was because He wanted to be comfortable. If you want to put your head on a nice, soft pillow, then you are like Jesus Christ. 
Did Jesus fast? Yes – one time that we know of. But most of the time He was not fasting. Most of the time Jesus enjoyed eating and drinking. John the Baptist was called by God to a very austere life of self-denial. But Jesus enjoyed food and drink.

Matthew 11:18-19 John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." 'But wisdom is proved right by her actions." 

They were wrong about Jesus being a glutton and drunkard, but obviously Jesus must have enjoyed food. That phrase “eating and drinking” pictures someone celebrating at a wedding feast or party.
Jesus enjoyed the pleasures of life. He was a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering, and whenever there was a choice between some earthly pleasure and the will of God He chose the will of God hands down. But when the two were not in conflict, Jesus enjoyed fellowship with the Father through earthly pleasures. We have talked about this many times. If you enjoy the pleasures of life without reference to God, without paying any conscious attention to Him – that’s idolatry. That is gaining your joy from earthly things instead of God. But if you use the pleasures of this world as emblems of God’s goodness, and you consciously think of them as expressions of His love, and if, each time you enjoy them you think of how delightful God must be to be the Author of such a delightful thing, and at the same time you understand how utterly incapable that earthly pleasure is of giving you joy in and of itself; then your enjoyment of earthly pleasures is acceptable worship that glorifies God. If you want to follow in Jesus’ steps you are going to have to make joy the pursuit of your life. You are going to have to make joy your highest goal. And you are going to have to prefer the greatest joy over lesser joys. And you are going to have to make your main pursuit the greatest joy of all – which comes from loving the people God loves because God loves them. Remember Acts 20:35? Jesus preferred giving to receiving because He got more blessedness out of giving than out of receiving, and Jesus wanted maximum blessedness.”

Delighted in corporate worship and fellowship

So don’t think of following Jesus as a matter of mostly denying your desires. Following Jesus is not mostly a matter of denial; it is mostly a matter of preferring greater joys to lesser joys. Jesus’ life was a life of desiring massive joy and going after it – and saying no to anything that got in the way of it – like lesser joys.
The strongest statement of desire that Jesus ever made (that I could find) was in Lk.22:15. In that passage there was something Jesus wanted so bad, He said epithumea epithumeo. Epithumia is the normal Greek word for lust. It doesn’t always have a sexual or negative connotation – it just means extreme, intense desire. And Jesus uses noun and the verb: “I have intensely desired with intense desire.” He never said that about anything else. So what was it that He desired with such intense desire?

Luke 22:15 And he said to them, "I have intensely desired with intense desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

And not only did they celebrate the Passover feast together, but that was when Jesus preached to them what we now call the Upper Room Discourse. All that wonderful teaching from John 13-17. The washing of the disciples’ feet and His teaching on that, the section in ch.14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. I am going to prepare a place for you, the teaching about the Holy Spirit, who would come as a Comforter, the Vine and the Branches, the promises of joy and heaven, the high priestly prayer. And according to Mt.26:30 and Mk.14:26 they closed out their time together with singing. 
And in addition to all that, it was when Jesus transformed the Passover into communion. Jesus intensely desired to partake of the very first communion with His Disciples. One of the ways we imitate Jesus is by enjoying communion. And for Jesus communion was a very, very big deal. He took the greatest Jewish feast of the year – Passover – which was instituted by God and practiced and celebrated faithfully by the Jews for 1500 years; and in one night transformed it into a completely new celebration. Throughout Jewish history Passover had been the greatest celebration of the year because it commemorated the greatest act of divine salvation ever – the deliverance from Egypt. But Jesus was just about to do a greater act of salvation, and so now we celebrate that with communion. It was a very big deal to Jesus, and He eagerly desired to do it. So the last point (19 in our list) is really more than one thing. Jesus intensely desired fellowship with the 12, ministry to the 12, and to participate in this high act of corporate worship with the 12. So we follow Jesus’ example by pursuing joy, especially the joy of loving people, and especially the joy of loving people in the context of corporate worship, preaching, singing, fellowship, ministry, and communion. Any time you are in the car on Sunday morning on your way here and there is not intense desire in your heart, cry out to God in your car to give you a heart like Christ’s so that you might follow in His steps. 
Were the conditions ideal in that upper room that night? No. Was the worship team any good? Definitely not like what Jesus was used to in heaven. Peter was probably singing too loud and too fast, and Thomas was probably questioning whether they had picked the best hymn. Judas walking out in the middle of communion certainly had to have put a damper on the whole meeting for Jesus. And yet Jesus’ heart was full of joy because that worship service was the fulfillment of deep, powerful, intense, desire in His great heart. 

Conclusion 
If anyone claims to remain in Him he must walk as Jesus walked. And if you can’t remember all 19 things in the list, just keep the three categories in your mind: Devotion to God, Warfare against Satan, and Love for people. The one who claims to remain in Him must love God, seek God, submit to God, and treasure God’s will above all. He must remain alert to the warfare and fight hard using faith in the Word of God. And where he fails he must repent and turn back to God. And he must draw near enough to the heart of God that it compels him to love people. And to love them with a love that will give up any freedom and any pleasure for the greater joy of loving those God loves because He loves them. Their lives will be a pursuit of joy in God fulfilled mainly through worship and fellowship with God’s people.

Benediction: Col.3:12-14 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Knowing God & Loving People Part 6 The New Commandment 2:7-8

 Summary: I’m writing you a new command (love – a fundamental of the gospel), the fulfillment of which in Christ and you is a reality because of the arrival of the new age of light. The new age will be dominated and defined by the New Commandment (new model, motivation, object, purpose, promise, and enablement – CHRIST!). That age to come is breaking into this present age and we experience it by living out the New Commandment.

Introduction
Difficulties
The orthodoxy of the New Command (“Read my lips: No new doctrines”)
Save your creativity for application
The context of the New Command
Jesus’ odd statement
This present Darkness
The Creation before the Curse
The plunge into darkness
The promised new age of light
Announcement of a kingdom of light
Jesus = the fulfillment of Isaiah 9
In what way is it new?
Belongs to a new age
New model, object, motivation, purpose, promise, enablement
Definition of the New Command
Love is a feeling
The components of love
1.	High regard – valuing the person’s worth
2.	Strongly desiring what is in the person’s best interests.
3.	Strongly desiring happiness & comfort for the person
4.	Prioritizing that person ahead of your desires/impulses
5.	Liking
Keeping the New Command
Keeping the New Command
What a delightful kingdom, where the only law is love!
Activation of the New Command: Overlapping ages
True in Him and us
Inaugurated Eschatology
Love = participation in the new age
New love is generated by glimpses of the new age
Conclusion

1 John 2:3-11 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. 9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. 

Introduction
Difficulties
We are studying verse by verse through 1 John, and we come today to verses 7-11 of chapter 2, which is one of the most puzzling passages in the whole book.

7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command, but an old command
8 I am writing you a new command

How can it be both old and new? And what is so important about its oldness and newness? And what on earth does the rest of verse 8 mean?

… which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

How can a commandment be true or false? And how does the passing of the darkness make it true in Him and in us?
None of us love like we ought to love. We all fall short when it comes to loving our wives, husbands, children, parents, friends, and (especially) our enemies. We all have those certain people who are especially hard for us to love. And we are all guilty of neglect in this matter of loving one another. The answers to the questions I just presented are going to do a lot more than satisfy our curiosity about a difficult verse in Scripture. They are going to provide insights that will enable us to have hearts full of love for one another.

The orthodoxy of the New Command (“Read my lips: No new doctrines”)

But before looking at verse 8 we need verse 7. John starts by making an emphatic point about the oldness of the command.

7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command, but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the message you have heard.

In this epistle John is battling with a group of false teachers for hearts of the people. And those false teachers were doctrinal innovators. 

2 John 1:9 Anyone who does not remain in the teaching about Christ, but goes beyond it, does not have God. 

John’s opponents were going beyond what Scripture said. They were coming up with new twists on the gospel that were intriguing and interesting. 
People are attracted to that which is new and clever and innovative and fresh. They do not want to get locked in to the tired old, dried-up religion of the past. They want something new! There are churches that have their whole focus on appealing to that desire. They advertise with slogans like, “This is not your grandparents’ church.”
Newness and innovation in our traditions is fine. But doctrinal innovation is deadly. God’s Word never changes, and even after heaven and earth pass away not one letter of Scripture will pass away – ever. 
Save your creativity for application
Do not ever be innovative or novel with the interpretation of God’s Word. This is a constant temptation for Bible teachers, because when you come up with something new people think you are really insightful and brilliant. But what people need is not our brilliance. What they need is God’s Word – His ancient, unchanging, eternal Word.
There is a place for creativity and innovation. We should be creative and imaginative when it comes to methods of teaching and applying the unchangeable truths of God’s Word. But what we are helping them understand must be the ancient truths that were intended by the original authors and nothing else.
This is an especially important warning for our day, because the Christian culture of our time is especially susceptible to false teachers who come along with new doctrines. There are no doubt many reasons for that, but one of them is the fact that so much preaching today is so shallow. Some pastors want to avoid controversy, others do not think people can handle the meat of God’s Word, others are just lazy. So you go to church week after week and every time it is “Jesus died for your sins, trust God, read your Bible and pray, share your faith, and don’t forget to give your offering,” and that is about it. And after ten years of that it starts getting a little boring. 
I believe what has happened in our time is there is a famine of God’s Word in the land because the shepherds are doling out only the tiniest of crumbs to the flock, and God’s people are starving for meat. And that voracious appetite drives them to gobble up anything that seems to them like meat – anything that seems a little deeper than the stuff they are used to, so when someone comes up with something new, they assume it is meat and they wolf it down.
The Word of God never changes, and it does not need our help to spice it up or bring it up to date. Our only task is to mine out of it the rich, eternal treasures that are there.

The context of the New Command 

 8 I am writing you a new command

John’s main concern in this section is to talk about the New Commandment that Jesus gave in John 13. But first he had to make sure that was not misunderstood. When you are dealing with innovators who are adding new things to God’s Word you have to be very careful before talking about a new command. But now that he has made that clear he wants to get on with talking about the new commandment. 
Jesus’ odd statement
It is not new in the sense of being innovative or different from what Jesus taught. In fact it came directly out of the mouth of Jesus in John 13.

John 13:34-35 I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

I think Jesus intended that passage to cause us to scratch our heads a little bit. What in the world is new about the command to love? Jesus Himself said that love for your neighbor was the second greatest commandment in the Old Testament – right behind loving God. The love command has been around forever but by calling it a new command Jesus obviously wants to make us stop and think. In what sense is it new? To answer that we are going to have to cover some background material. So stick with me for about ten minutes while I do a little Biblical theology to show you how this passage fits in to the big picture of the whole of God’s Word and redemptive history.
This present Darkness
The Creation before the Curse
Living in Colorado it is easy for us to appreciate the beauty and wonders of God’s creation. And some have traveled and seen more wonders than others. But no matter where you live or where you have traveled, no one in this room has ever seen what God saw at the end of day six when He sat back and smiled and said, “Behold, it is very good.” There are only two human beings who ever saw the good creation before it got wrecked – Adam and Eve.
The light that God commanded to shine during the creation week exposed the unimaginable wonders of God’s perfect, pristine, non-cursed creation. Psalm 23 talks about walking through the valley of the shadow of death. But at this time there was no such valley. In Psalm 107:10 the people sat in darkness and the deepest gloom. But at this time there was no such place. There were no threats, no dangers, no disasters, no crises. There was no sin or evil or suffering or unhappiness or gloom or sorrow or sickness or loss or death.

The plunge into darkness
But then came the catastrophe of sin, and the disaster of God’s curse, and the creation was subjected to futility and trouble and the process of decay. And the darkness of evil and sin enveloped the entire earth. Just three chapters after the pristine perfection of Eden we read this:

Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

The entire human race, with the exception of one family, was swallowed up by the darkness. And God destroyed them all with a flood.
The promised new age of light
Announcement of a kingdom of light
For thousands of years after that God was a light to the few who knew Him, but for the most part the world was engulfed in thick blackness. It was a long, cold, dark night for the human race. And Scripture has a name for that night – it’s called this present age (or this present darkness).
But finally God sent a spokesman (Isaiah) to announce the impending arrival of a new age. Soon the dawn would break, the night would end, and light would come.

Isaiah 9:2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of darkness, a light has dawned. … 6 For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on His shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

This child will usher in a new age of light that will be a time of great joy. 

3 You have enlarged the nation and increased its joy. [The people] have rejoiced before You as they rejoice at harvest time and as they rejoice when dividing spoils. 

In the past God had been a light to the faithful among His people in Israel, but the rays of light from the dawning of this new day would shoot across the entire world.

Isaiah 42:6 I make you a covenant for the people [and] a light to the nations

Israel will still be the center from which the light emanates, but it will be a light for the whole world. 

Isaiah 60:1 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines over you. 2 For look, darkness covers the earth, and total darkness the peoples; but the Lord will shine over you, and His glory will appear over you. 3 Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your radiance. 
19 The sun will no longer be your light by day, and the brightness of the moon will not shine on you; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendor. 20 Your sun will no longer set, and your moon will not fade; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your sorrow will be over. 21 Then all your people will be righteous.

The Gospel of Matthew tells quotes Isaiah 9:2 in reference to Jesus. When Jesus arrived on the scene Matthew says:

Matthew 4:16 the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

Jesus is the Messiah who came to usher in the great kingdom of light that had been promised for hundreds of years - to restore the unspoiled, pristine glory of the creation that was spoiled by sin and the curse.
In what way is it new?
Belongs to a new age
That is the background. Now back to Jesus’ New Commandment. In this new kingdom, in the age to come, according to Rev.21:5 God will make all things new. And so in addition to the new song, and new names and new Jerusalem and new heavens and new earth Jesus gives a New Commandment. Part of what made Jesus’ commandment new was the fact that it was to be the governing, defining characteristic of this new age of light. The age to come – the light of the new Day, would be a kingdom of love. But not just love like Old Testament love – a whole new kind of love.

1. It took on a new object. 

John 13:34-35 I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

The command was to have a special love for disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ (Christians). We have a special love for those who love the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. It has a new motivation. 

John 13:34 Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.

We love because of how He loved us.

3. It has a new purpose.

John 13:35 this all people will know that you are My disciples

We love with this kind of love for the purpose of putting the love of Christ on display before a watching world,

4. It has a new pattern. 

John 13:34 Just as I have loved you… 
We follow in the footsteps of Jesus in His radical, revolutionary way of loving,

5. It is attached to a new promise.

Those who love like this are rewarded as having loved the Son of God Himself.

Matthew 25:40 Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

6. It is empowered by a new enablement. 

The Holy Spirit dwells within us and energizes this kind of love in us.

Galatians 5:22 The fruit of the Spirit is love.

“Love your neighbor” is a command for this present age. “Love as I have loved you” is a command for the age to come. And it’s new because it’s based on a new power, and new promise, a new pattern, a new purpose, a new passion, and a new Person.

Definition of the New Command

Before we go any further I need to take a moment to define what love is, because there is a fair amount of misunderstanding on this issue. The most common Greek word for love in the NT is agape. We named our church Agape Bible Church because Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God and love your neighbor, and He used the term agape. There are many people who teach that agape is a special kind of love that is different from normal love, and that agape is not a feeling. They say it is an act of the will, a commitment, action – but not feeling. They say it cannot involve feelings because it is commanded, and God could never command us to have certain feelings.
Love is a feeling

The definition of love in Scripture is the topic of my doctoral dissertation that I have been working on for the past 3 years, so I have done a great deal of studying on this subject. And I can assure you without any reservation whatsoever that not only does love involve the emotions, but emotion is at the very core of love. Love is a feeling. It is not actions - it is an emotion the causes certain actions. When Paul wrote the love chapter in 1 Cor.13 he started out by saying that it is possible to give all your possessions to the poor and die as a martyr and still not have love. If love were merely actions then that would be nonsense. 
Think for a moment about Moses’ command in Dt.6:4. When Moses wanted to describe something that was done with your entire inner being, he would use the phrase “all your heart and all your soul.” We see that phrase numerous times throughout the Pentateuch. But when he comes to the command to love God he takes that statement and does something he never does any other time - he adds a third term to his stock phrase. We are to love God with our entire inner being – all your heart and all your soul, and then on top of that, just to press the idea into the most superlative extreme, he added “and with all your strength.” (Dt.6:5) In other words, we are to love God with absolutely, positively every single little nook and cranny of our existence – every part of your being. There is no way you can study that phrase and come up with some interpretation that says, “You can love God will almost all your being, but this one part of you doesn’t have to be involved.”

In Matthew 22 someone asked Jesus what the most important command was and Jesus quoted what had by then become the most famous passage in the entire Old Testament: the command to love God with all your being in Deuteronomy 6. But when Jesus quoted it, He added yet another term to the list. Not only love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength, but also all your mind. God just keeps piling up terms. It boggles the mind to think that anyone could interpret that to mean that your emotions are somehow exempted. To say it is OK to love with every part of your being except the emotions would be a flat-out denial of that passage.
The components of love
As I have studied love in Scripture, I have found that there are five major components that emerge when Scripture speaks of loving people.

High regard – valuing the person’s worth
That which you love is by definition a treasure to you. And so the starting place for loving people is treasuring people. And under the New Commandment, you treasure those Christ treasures because of how much He treasures them.

Acts 20:28 Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

The motive for ministry is the love of Christ.

Romans 14:15 Do not … destroy your brother for whom Christ died.

People are precious to Jesus Christ and so they should be precious to us. So love starts with regarding someone as having great value.

Strongly desiring what is in the person’s best interests.
Loving someone means being for them and not against them – being on their side, pulling for them and truly wanting what is best for them. That is why love rejoices with those who rejoice. (Ro.12:10-15) And it is also why love does not envy. (1 Cor.13:4) If you genuinely desire what is good for them, then when good things happen to them it will make you happy – even if those good things did not happen to you. And under the New Commandment, desiring what is in a person’s best interests means desiring to bring them near to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to experience the benefits of His grace, because that is the best thing that could happen to anyone.

Strongly desiring happiness & comfort for the person
This is different from the last point. Love desires what is best, but it also desires what is pleasant and enjoyable. Love wants to give people what is best for them, and sometimes what is best is not pleasant at all. But if you truly love the person you will grieve when what is best is not pleasant. And if there is an option between good-tasting medicine and bitter medicine you will prefer to give them the pleasant stuff. That is why 1 Corinthians 13 says love is kind. That word refers to a soothing, soft, sweet, gracious, warm, welcoming disposition. It is the opposite of sternness or grumpiness or harshness. The reason love is soft and gentle and sweet is because it truly does desire not only what is best for the person, but also what is pleasant. And under Jesus’ New Commandment we do this by setting the gentleness of Christ before us as the governing model for all our interactions with one another.

2 Corinthians 10:1 By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you

Prioritizing that person ahead of your desires/impulses 
Another line in 1 Corinthians 13 says Love is not self-seeing. Love regards the other person’s needs as more important than your own personal preferences or immediate impulses. When there is a conflict between what is best or more pleasant for them, and your preferences, love chooses what is best for them. And under the New Commandment we do this after the model of Christ:

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.

Liking
Contrary to what you may have been taught, you have to like one another. There is no way around this. When people say, “I love him as a brother, I just don’t like him much” – that is a contradiction. Love involves delight in and enjoyment of the person. Feelings of distain toward a person are not compatible with love. They are the opposite of love. When you have animosity, distain, dislike, distrust, aversion, discomfort – or whatever other euphemism we want to use to disguise our lack of love, it is all the same thing – lack of love.
We go to great lengths to redefine the words love and hate in Scripture to make it so we are justified in not liking certain people. But there is no question about the fact that love includes liking. If you value a person highly enough, and if your heart is close to the heart of Christ and your affections for Him are strong enough, and if you have an understanding of how much Jesus loves that person, your heart will begin to warm toward that person. And under the New Commandment this kind of humanly-impossible affection comes from a new nature that we get through the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ when we are born again.

1 Peter 1:22-23 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again

And it also comes though recognizing and appreciating the things God is doing in the person’s heart.

2 Corinthians 7:15 Titus’ affection for you is all the greater when he remembers that you were all obedient, receiving him with fear and trembling.

When we fix our thoughts and attentiveness on the love that our brothers and sisters have for the Lord instead noticing their failings and annoying idiosyncrasies, our emotional affection for them will increase. Stop thinking about that person’s mannerisms and start thinking about the fact that he loves the Lord Jesus Christ!

Keeping the New Command

So that is love. Now turn back to 1 John and let’s fit that into the context of what John has been saying. 

1 John 2:3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 
5 if anyone keeps his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 

Do you remember our discussion about keeping God’s Word? Holding it dear to your heart, guarding it, clinging to it, holding it as the only guide and the sustaining food and the final authority of your life? That’s what “keeping” means - treasuring the will of God as expressed through His commandments. And that is what we are to do with the New Commandment. We are not only to obey it, but we are to treasure it and delight in it.
What a delightful kingdom, where the only law is love!
It really is not hard to do if you give much thought to what an amazing and delightful command it is. What an amazing and marvelous kingdom, where the only law is love! And what a unique law. If you think about it - God is pretty much the only one who requires love. I read this week that 35,000 new laws are passed every year in our country. Between all the various levels of government there are probably millions of laws that we are living under. And not one of them requires us to love anybody. In our schools and workplaces and institutions and organizations we come up with countless rules and codes of conduct and codes of ethics and policies and requirements and guidelines and bylaws, we have rules for language, rules for playgrounds, rules for riding an elevator, rules for walking on the sidewalk, but how often do you see any rule anywhere that requires you to love? We do not even have a law that says you have to love your wife – or your children.
How different God is from us. He is not one bit shy about requiring love. In fact, every last one of His laws requires love. I think maybe the reason the world is hesitant to make laws requiring love is because it seems like too much to ask of people. In our world as long as you behave in a reasonably civil way toward people you do not actually have to love them. Another reason we do not have laws about love is there would be an enforcement problem. How do you enforce a law like that?
But in God’s kingdom there is no enforcement problem, because He can see the human heart; Nor is it too much to ask, because He enables us to do it. This kingdom that Jesus will reign over for all of eternity is going to be a place where there will be countless many millions of people and millions of angels and other heavenly creatures, and every last one will have nothing but love for all the others. And not only will every being love every other being with all five of the elements of love and without any failure of any kind, but even better than that they will all love God with all their being and without any contamination of love.
That is what paradise is. And we will live that way forever, throughout ages and ages and ages and endless millennia and eons, and the whole time that love will do nothing but grow. And where love increases joy increases, because at the core of love is delight. The eternal kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ will be a place dominated and defined by perfect fulfillment of Jesus’ New Commandment. 

Activation of the New Command: Overlapping ages
True in Him and us
We don’t command love in our world because a place dominated and defined by this kind of love just seems too good to be true. But not only is it not too good to be true – it is true.

8 I am writing you a new command, which is true in Him and in you…

The word translated “true” can mean “real” or “genuine.” And the word “which” refers grammatically not to the word “command” but to the word “new.” What John is saying is that the reality of Jesus’ new command is verified as being present both in Jesus and in the readers of 1 John. You can tell by looking at the life of Jesus and the lives of His followers that the new command to love with Christ’s love is being carried out. This futuristic, far-fetched, heavenly situation of the New Commandment dominating the society has actually already been activated and can be observed right now in Christ and in His Church! And in the second half of the verse John gives a reason why that is.

8 I am writing you a new command, which is true in Him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
Inaugurated Eschatology
Prior to Jesus’ first coming it was night. After His Second Coming it will be day. The time in between is a time of overlapping ages. It is the dawn. The age to come is already breaking in upon this present age of darkness, and the darkness and light are currently co-existing. Scholars call this “inaugurated eschatology.” The end times are already here but not yet here. The kingdom is inaugurated, but is not yet present in its final form. We are already delivered from sin in some measure, but not yet in the fullest way. We are already saved, but we do not yet have the full, final, complete benefits of our salvation. Satan is already defeated in one sense, but not yet in the final sense. This is an age of already but not yet. Or to use John’s terms, the true, glorious light of the final kingdom is already shining, but the darkness is not yet gone. It is still in the process of passing away.
The true light – the light of the great kingdom of light promised in the Old Testament, the daylight of the glorious, eternal day that is going to come after this present darkness – that light is already starting to shine. And the effects of it are already being felt in this world. And one of the effects of this new light that is already shining into this present age is the fulfillment of Jesus’ new commandment in His people. That is the force of the word “because” in verse 8. The arrival of this true light is the cause of us carrying out the new commandment. 
That is why we find the New Commandment in Matthew and not Revelation. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in this present age is pushing back the frontiers of the darkness of sin and the curse. Everything in the gospel overturns the effects of the curse and restores some element of paradise. We are not waiting until the Second Coming to dispel this present darkness. The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ is to shine out from us even now. And so the New Commandment went into effect in John 13. That wonderful law of heaven that will make the eternal kingdom of Christ such a glorious place is in operation now, and it is true in Him and in us.
Love = participation in the new age
And so Christ’s new commandment is one of the most glorious previews of the coming new age. The counterfeit of all this is in the New Age movement. They talk about a new age of light. But their idea of utopia is where everyone loves everyone else – period. They do not give any thought to the kind of love or to the motives or anything else. And none of it points to the glory of Jesus Christ. They think just as long as everyone had some positive attitude toward everyone else it would be paradise. They are wrong – it would not be paradise. Paradise is not where everyone likes everyone. Paradise is where the unspeakable, unfathomable, unimaginable beauty and majesty and glory of the Son of God are on display in unveiled brilliance. And one of the things in heaven that will bring that glory into sharp focus will be the new kind of love that everyone has for one another. It will be a love that points all attention to the worthiness and magnificence of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what will make it paradise. Heaven will be a place where instead of love between creatures competing against love for God, or distracting us from God, it will fill us with wonder over the glory of God. And the purpose of the Church now is to shine samples of that future glory into this present darkness so that all men will know we are His disciples by the undeniable reality of the New Commandment dominated and defining the Church. You can tell who is really interested in heaven by who is sampling the lifestyle of it right now.
New love is generated by glimpses of the new age
And focusing our sights on heaven is what enables us to live lives of love now. The more glimpses we get of the age to come the more eager we are to love each other with a kind of love that is completely foreign to this world. Do people in this world love each other? Sure; But only with a temporal, short-term perspective. If you take all the reasons they have for their love, and everything they hope to get out of it – all of it pertains to this world only. They love in a way that makes sense for people who see this life and this world as all there is. That is natural love. But when you get a glimpse of the age to come, and you see some rays of light from the promised kingdom of glory – that changes everything. You start loving in ways that do not make any sense in the short term, and that only make sense to those who can see what is coming. People in this world might sacrifice some things to get a larger reward later on in this life. But they have no interest in doing anything that does not have its payoff in this life. The new commandment is basically just a call to start living in the new kingdom here and now. 

1 Corinthians 7:31 Those who use the world [should do so] as though they did not make full use of it. For this world in its current form is passing away.

In other words, people who are aware that the Titanic is sinking do not spend a lot of efforts rearranging the deck chairs. They are just as busy as everyone else on the ship, but a lot of the things they are doing do not make sense to everyone else because the ones who know the ship is sinking are making all their decisions with that in view. Suddenly they are more than willing to give up their huge suite in the center of the ship for the junky, cramped little cabin next to the lifeboats. And they do not care about the dinner menu tomorrow because there will be no tomorrow for this ship. All their priorities change. When John says the darkness is passing away, and a few verses later (v.17) he says the world and its lusts are passing away, and Paul says the world in its current form is passing away (1 Cor.7:31), and Peter says…

1 Peter 4:7 The end of all things is near…

- all that is like saying, “This world is a sinking ship. So don’t invest your future in it.”
The best way to do that is through the new commandment. Love! Love like Jesus loved. Does that mean giving up your possessions so others can have your possessions? Giving up your big suite in the middle of the ship so someone else can have it? No – real love is to give up whatever you have to give up to have the maximum possible effectiveness in letting the rest of the people on the ship know that its sinking, and where the lifeboats are.

Conclusion
Think for a moment of what an awesome being the Lord Jesus Christ is. He is so good, so glorious, so powerful, so righteous, and pure - so absolutely perfect in every way that His mere arrival transforms a world of hopeless blackness into a kingdom of glorious light. Just as the sun effortlessly transforms the night into day just by being the sun, so the Lord Jesus Christ, just by His Coming, will transform this world of darkness, evil, and sin into a glorious kingdom of universal righteousness, peace, joy, and goodness. And to the increase of this glorious kingdom there will be no end. (Isa.9:7) The God we worship is so glorious that His mere arrival on this earth will drive away all darkness. There will no longer be such a thing as decay. Thorns will instantly become extinct. Disease and death will be dispelled. Evil and sin will become a distant memory. Oh, the gloriousness of our great King! Oh, how pure and holy is His being, and how awesome His power! How delightful it will be on that day to behold Him, and to see His majesty in person! Let’s do all we can to behold and experience and enjoy and reflect that glory here and now.

Benediction: 1 Timothy 6:15-16 God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.

Knowing God & Loving People Part 7 Lovers & Haters 2:9-11

Summary: Since the arrival of the new age of light is marked by love, those who lack love are obviously in the darkness. Their claims to be in the light are false. John only gives two categories: love and hate. Any unrepentant hatred places a person in the category of darkness. John is addressing the church split and giving a doctrinal and an ethical test. The latter is the test of love (haters are in the wrong). Hatred is any lack of love – the opposite of the five marks of love. Haters are in the dark (fare from God) walking in the dark (futility), and blinded (contributing to their own darkness by their unwillingness). The way of New Commandment love causes no stumbling (all stumbling is a stumbling away from love). So use the pursuit of love to solve all your problems.

Introduction
True light (claims vs. reality)
Lovers and Haters: Which are you?
Haters and Darkness
Negative feelings
Lack of love
The Five Components of Hatred
Regarding your brother as a…brother
In the darkness (far from the presence of God)
Walks in the dark (futility)
Blinded by the dark
Lovers and light
Conclusion: Light is good – seek it (though love)

1 John 2:3-11 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. 4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. 
9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. 

Introduction
Review: Arrival of the new age of light marked by New Commandment love 
There are two ages existing simultaneously. One is on its way in and the other is on its way out. This present age – the age of darkness – is on its way out. And the age to come – the age of light – is on its way in. We are living in the dawn that comes between the night time and the day time. There are still shadows and plenty of darkness, but the light of the coming day is already starting to shine over the horizon and push back the frontiers of the darkness.
And if you ask, “How do you know that is happening?”, John answers by pointing to the fulfillment of Jesus’ New Commandment. Jesus commanded a new kind of love – love that centered on Him. He commanded that we have a special love for those who love Him, and that we love them in the way that He loved, and that we do it for His sake and that it be an expression of love for Jesus Himself. That new kind of love is what will dominate and define the age to come. And so the presence of that new love now in Jesus and in His followers is evidence of the arrival of the new age of light.
Therefore those without the new love are part of the passing age of darkness
All that is in vv.7-8. Today we come to vv.9-11 and John draws the obvious conclusion from that principle. If the reason we know the new age of light has arrived is because of the new love that we observe in Jesus and His followers, then obviously those who do not have that new love are not part of this new age of light. They are part of this present age of darkness that is passing away. That is the point of vv.9-11.

True light (claims vs. reality)

Last week we studied vv.7-8 of ch.2, and the last thing John said was, “the true light is already shining.” He could have just said that the darkness is passing away and the light is already shining, but he says “true light.” He needs to say that because one of the major purposes of this letter is to rescue his readers from those who were promoting a false kind of light. Pretty much every religion talks about light. Everyone claims to be in the light. But in today’s passage (vv.9-11) John is going to show us how to spot the bogus light.

9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 

This is the third time in this chapter that John has started a verse with the words “Anyone who claims…” (lit: “The one claiming” ὁ λέγων)

4 The one claiming “I have come to know Him”…
6 the one claiming he remains in Him…
9 The one claiming he is in the light …

John is very concerned about exposing the disparity between people’s claims and reality. What you are is not determined by what you claim to be.
That is really a foreign concept in our culture. The world thinks your religious status is nothing more than affiliation. Someone asks you, “What is your religious affiliation?” and whatever answer you give is what you are. If you claim to be a Buddhist you are a Buddhist. If you claim to be a Christian you are a Christian. They think of religion as a matter of preference, so there is no such thing as a false claim when it comes to religion.
But they are wrong. Religion is not a matter of opinion or preference. Some things are merely a matter of preference. If I tell you that I am a supporter of some political candidate or party, then the mere act of speaking that makes the statement true. But there are other things that are true or not true regardless of what you claim. If I claim to be a horse that does not make me a horse. It just makes me a mixed-up human being. If you do not have the physical properties and the DNA of a horse, then any claim you make to be a horse is incorrect. And it is the same way with Christianity. You do not become a Christian just because you signed on the dotted line and affiliated yourself with Christianity. If you do not have the properties and DNA of a Christian than your claim to be a follower of Christ is false. And the DNA of a Christian is fulfillment of Jesus’ New Commandant: To love the people Jesus loves because Jesus loves them and in the way Jesus loves them. 

Lovers and Haters: Which are you?
Repentance vs. unrepentance 
John divides humanity into two categories: haters and lovers. The people in v.9 are haters and the people in v.10 are lovers. Haters are part of the passage age of darkness and lovers are part of the coming new age of light. And that is all there is. Every single soul on earth is either a hater or a lover. There is no third category.
And at first that is kind of hard to swallow, because no one hates everyone, so no one is a total hater. And no one is a perfect lover either – we have all had some animosity toward others at various times. So everyone loves and everyone hates. And yet some people fit into the v.10 category of lovers – even though sometimes we hate. And others fall into the v.9 category of haters – even though they also love. So if both groups have both love and hate, what determines whether you are in the one category or the other?
Don’t make the mistake a lot of people make and say, “If your whole life is mostly characterized by hatred then you are in the darkness, but if your whole life is mostly characterized by love, and you only fail in your love once in a while, then you are in the light.” That is a very, very common approach among Bible teachers, but it is a worldly perspective. That is the way the world looks at sin and righteousness. If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds then you are OK. That is not a Biblical perspective.
The Biblical way of thinking about it is this – if you have ever hated a single person for a single moment in your life, and you have not repented, you are guilty of being a hater and you are in the darkness. But if you are repentant you are in the light no matter how egregiously you have hated in the past. That is why we keep going back to chapter 1. Remember? Right at the outset of this book John prepared us for these passages that make it sound like you have to be perfect or you are not a true Christian. John alerted us that no one is without sin, and if we confess our sins and come back into the light in full repentance we are completely cleansed. God accepts genuine repentance as if it were righteousness.
So what determines if you are in the light or in the darkness? If you are unrepentant about your lack of love you are in the darkness. God requires that you love everyone – including your enemies. So with every last person with whom you are in contact you have two options: love them, or be repentant over your lack of love for them. God accepts both of those as love.
So lovers are people who have genuine, new commandment-type love and who repent over their lack of love. And haters are people who have no new commandment-type love at all. And they are unrepentant, so they are nothing but haters, because all the guilt of every incident of hatred in their lives still rests on them. None of those incidents of hatred have been forgiven, and so they still bear that blame.

Haters and Darkness
Hatred defined
Negative feelings
Before we go any farther, let’s take a minute to define hatred. Most of the time both the Greek and the Hebrew words mean exactly the same thing as the English word – hatred is hatred. It means to have ill feelings toward someone – animosity, unforgiveness, a grudge, dislike, distain, disgust. There are varying levels of hatred just like there are varying levels of love. Just as it is possible to have a little bit of love or a lot of love toward someone, so it is possible to hate someone a little bit or a lot. When we hate someone a little bit we use words like “dislike” or “I’m uncomfortable with that person” or something like that. When it is more extreme we use the word “hatred.” But it is all hatred. Whether it is little or big, it is all hatred.

Lack of love
And in Scripture the word hatred can even refer to love that is less than it should be.

Genesis 29:30-31 Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah.

Jacob had two wives – Rachel and Leah. And what that verse clearly says is that Jacob loved Leah, but he loved Rachel more.

31 When the LORD saw that Leah was hated (same word as in 1 Jn.2:9, 11), he opened her womb.

Jacob loved Leah, but not as much as he should have. So love that falls short of what it ought to be can be called a kind of hatred.
Hatred is simply the lack of love. Just as the definition of darkness is “anyplace where there is a lack of light,” so the definition of hatred is “anyplace there is a lack of love.”

The Five Components of Hatred
So let’s remind ourselves of the five components of love we looked at last week.
Love involves…
11)	Having high regard for the person
12)	Desiring their best interests
13)	Desiring their happiness
14)	Prioritizing them above your own impulses and preferences
15)	Liking them – enjoying them and taking delight in them.
That’s love. 
So hatred is when you lack in those five areas.
16)	Low regard. The person has little or no value in your heart. They are not a treasure to you. They are not worthy of a lot of your time and attention and concern. And when a person is not of great worth in your sight then you will become…
17)	indifferent to the person’s best interests. Instead of strongly desiring their best interests, you won’t care much about them. And if they do something to hurt you, not only will you not desire their best interests – you might even desire their harm.
18)	Instead of strongly desiring the person’s happiness you are indifferent to their happiness. It doesn’t cause you any sorrow if they are unhappy. And again, if they do something to hurt you, you might even fall into the more extreme levels of hatred where you actually desire their unhappiness.
19)	Prioritizing own preferences above the person. Where you lack love you will regard yourself and your own immediate desires as a higher priority than that person.
20)	Lack of delight in or enjoyment of the person. You are blind to everything that is good and beautiful about them. You cannot see the image of God in them. You cannot see them as a precious treasure that is highly valued in God’s sight. You cannot see them as being worth the blood of Jesus. You cannot see what is good about them, and so they bring you no enjoyment of God. You cannot enjoy God through them like you can with people you love.
Those are all marks of hatred. Any time when there is a lack of love – that is hatred. We usually do not think we are guilty of hatred because we are so generous in our definitions. We tend to be real liberal in our definition of love. Even the slightest, tiniest, weakest impulse of love we accept as genuine love. We have the faintest little spark of affection for our wives, and we pat ourselves on the back and say, “Of course I love my wife!”
But at the same time we tend to be real narrow in our definition of hatred. Only the most extreme negative feelings count as hatred. “I don’t feel like strangling him to death, and therefore the negative feeling I have toward him doesn’t really count as hatred.” That is why most people think they do great with love and they don’t have much of a problem at all with hatred.
And sometimes we even disguise our hatred as love. We dislike the person in our hearts, but we act in kind ways toward them and then claim to love them. It is possible to hide your hatred behind a veneer of love. But if there is a hostile attitude in your heart then what you have is not true love. I read this week about a Sunday school teacher who asked the class, “What does the Bible teach about how you are to treat your brothers and sisters?” And one kid said, “Thou shalt not murder.” You can’t argue with the kid’s theology. You really shouldn’t murder your brother. But if the 6th commandment is the first thing that comes to your mind when you are thinking about how to deal with a brother, you need to check your attitude. 

Regarding your brother as a…brother
There are a lot of different ways for you to think about a brother in Christ. You can view him as just a part of the landscape – take no more notice of him than you do of a rock on the ground. No real positive feelings or negative feelings toward him – just indifference. That is a form of hatred. You can view your brother as a nuisance – someone who encroaches upon your time and energy. He is someone who just uses up your time and causes you headaches. That is a form of hatred. You can even view your brother as an enemy – someone you need to oppose and fight against. That is a form of hatred.
Love is when you do not regard your brother as an enemy, or as a nuisance, or as a part of the landscape – but as a brother …
- a beloved child of the Father who adopted and forgave and loved you, a sibling who loves the same Father you love.
- a person whose joy and wellbeing are so supremely important that the Creator of the Universe said He will reward anyone handsomely who contributes to this person’s joy.
- one whose needs are your needs and whose interests are your interests and whose joy is your joy – and through whom God Himself can be experienced and enjoyed.
And where that attitude is lacking, there is hatred. Hatred in the attitudes can be hidden way down deep so no one can see it but you. But whether anyone else sees it or not, unrepentant hatred is incompatible with nearness to God. So if you hate (if you fail to love with New Commandment love), you are in the darkness. And until you repent you remain in the darkness. Because it is impossible to love God and hate the people He loves.

1 John 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. 
The Darkness of hatred
Skip down to v.11 for a moment and take a look at the three things John says about those who fail to love. They are in the darkness, they walk in the darkness, and they are blinded.

In the darkness (far from the presence of God)

is in the darkness

That means far from the presence of God. They read their Bible, and it is just print on a page. They do not experience the thrilling joys and deep comfort and strengthening and nourishment and enlightenment and encouragement that should come through the Scriptures. They pray and instead of their souls being lifted up into glorious communion with the Lord, they just sit there with a lot of distracted thoughts that are about as far from satisfying their souls as they could be. Instead of their ministry being fulfilling fellowship with God it is a burdensome drudgery. That is what happens with the Lord withdraws His favorable presence from your life, which is what the darkness is. So these people are claiming to know God and to be in the light and to have fellowship with God, but the reality is they are in the dark – nowhere near the presence of God.

Walks in the dark (futility)
Then John adds, not only is he in the darkness, but he walks in the darkness. 
Walking refers to the day-to-day decision-making of life. Every decision you make during the day is like taking a step in some direction. Life is not supposed to be mere existence. It is supposed to be a progression that gets you somewhere. But when you walk in the dark you don’t get anywhere. You do not know where to step, and when you do take a step you don’t know if that step will take you closer to your goal or farther from your goal. You do not even know what the goal is! For the person in the dark, life is a pointless meandering that leads absolutely nowhere but farther into the darkness, farther and farther and farther from the presence of God. He might make some decisions that will get him some more money or power or pleasure in the short run, but money and power and pleasure in the hands of a man moving farther and farther from the light will not be able to bring joy or satisfaction to his soul. He doesn’t know where he’s going or where he’s been or even where he is now in relationship to anything important. 
Stumbling in the darkness

Proverbs 4:19 the way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble.

They are forever falling down, and they don’t even know why. The world’s theories about what causes stumbling in the human heart are endless. There are as many different schools of psychotherapy as there are psychologists. You know how many different theories of aerodynamics there are? One. All the people with different theories have died in plane crashes. God has given us the ability to figure out aerodynamics fairly well. But the human soul is way beyond our ability to master through research. And so apart from accepting what God has revealed, we are left with nothing but aimless, groundless theorizing in the dark. The world can figure out a few things at the margin to mitigate some extreme behaviors. But they have no idea how to solve the deep problems of the heart because they do not know the cause of those problems. They do not know what makes them stumble.

Blinded by the dark
And then John adds a third idea. Not only is he in the dark (separated from nearness to God), and not only is he walking in the dark (a life of utter futility and aimlessness), but on top of that the darkness has a blinding effect on him.

and doesn't know where he's going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. 

There are fish that live in areas where there is no light that have eye sockets but no eyes. Spend enough time in the darkness and you lose your ability to see. 
The more time you spend away from the presence of God the more damage you do to your spiritual eyesight. The darkness is not a neutral place. It is a deadly place. It destroys the ability of your soul to perceive. People who persist in their wandering in the darkness become so blind that you can present them with light and they can’t see it. Wisdom looks like foolishness to them. Knowledge looks like folly to them. Lunacy looks like intelligence to them. Tell them that everything that exists spontaneously came into existence out of nothing and with no cause and for no absolutely reason and it makes perfect sense to them. Tell them that their good deeds can somehow cancel out their countless millions of sins they have committed and they fall for it. Tell them they will be able to get off the hook on judgment day by outsmarting God with some clever one-liner and they think that’s brilliant. Unwillingness to see the truth, before long, becomes inability to see the truth.
You see this principle again and again throughout Scripture. There are two massive walls that block off access to truth. One is ignorance in the mind. The other is hardness of heart. People think they can find truth just by breaking down the wall of ignorance. But no matter how much education and information you amass, if you do not do something about that other barrier, if you do not somehow break down the wall of hardness of heart – unwillingness to accept the truth – then all the education in the world will leave you just as devoid of truth as when you started. And if you cling to that unwillingness too long, God will eventually judge you by allowing your unwillingness to become cemented into inability. 

Luke 8:18 Therefore, take care how you listen. For whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken away from him.” 

If you listen the wrong way – with a bias against the truth – then even what ability you did have to understand will be taken away.
And in the context of 1 John 2 this is applied to love. The more you give in to the way of hatred the more remote will be the possibility of ever returning to love. Indulging negative feelings toward someone does a certain amount of injury to your spirit that makes it a hundred times harder to recover and start loving that person again. The hardest people to love are those people you have allowed your heart to harden against because once you wander down that path of darkness it is very, very hard to get back on to the path of light.
The blindness of the lost is a blindness that they willingly embraced. Look back up at v.9 for a moment.

9 The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother is in the darkness until now. 

The “until now” points back to the “already” in v.8. What does it say about a person if the light is already shining right now at this moment, and yet he is in still in the darkness? If there is light available but you are still in the darkness that means you must have a heart that is unwilling to turn toward the light. And the surest sign of a heart like that is a lack of love for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Lovers and light 

In contrast to all that is v.10.

10 The one who loves his brother remains in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in (him).
No stumbling in the light
The last word in that sentence can be translated either “him” or “it.” In my judgment “it” is the correct translation – referring to the light. There is no stumbling block in the light. Nothing about the way of love causes stumbling. 
Stumbling means sinning. The picture is of someone trying to make his way toward holiness but getting tripped up in that effort and falling on his face. In the darkness that happens all the time, and you don’t even know why. But there is no stumbling block in the light. Nothing on the path of love will make you stumble into sin.
At first that doesn’t seem to match our experience. From a human point of view it seems like the way of love is fraught with all kinds of obstacles and potential stumbling blocks. A young couple fall in love and because of their love for one another they are faced with all kinds of temptations toward sin that didn’t exist before they fell in love. If you really delight in hanging out with someone, there are all kinds of temptations you can fall into. You can become selfish and get upset if they don’t pay enough attention to you. You can get jealous if they spend their time with someone else. You can be tempted to neglect other important things because you spend too much time with them. A pastor can love his church so much that he neglects his own family. Or he can love his wife so much that he ends up neglecting his ministry.
It seems like the way of love is filled with stumbling blocks. If you look at your own life – who do you tend to sin against the most? Isn’t it those you love the most? We are polite to strangers and rude to our husbands and wives. We would never dream of yelling at an acquaintance, yet we raise our voices with each other. Familiarity breeds contempt.
So how can John say there is nothing in the way of love to cause stumbling? The answer is John can say that because that there is nothing in the way of love to cause stumbling. All those things I mentioned before are not temptations caused by love – they are temptations to depart from the way of love. The boyfriend who is tempted to defile his girlfriend morally is not being tempted by love. He is being tempted to indulge his own impulses even at the expense of her best interests. That is the opposite of love. If he loved his girlfriend his desire for her purity would be greater than his desire for physical pleasure.
The woman who gets upset because she’s not getting enough attention from her friend is being tempted toward selfishness. That is the opposite of love. If she loved her friend she would be concerned about her friend’s happiness above her own preferences. 
Being rude to your family is not a product of love – it is the opposite of love. If you loved them as you should you would show them courtesy and kindness because of how much you desire their joy.
There is nothing in the way of love that causes stumbling into sin. It is only departures from that way that cause stumbling. That is why Paul can say…

Romans 13:8 he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.

There is just one command: love. Every other law in the Bible is just an example of what love looks like. If you love God you are not going to worship idols or put anything above God in your life. And if you love people you are not going to steal from them or lie to them or commit adultery against them or murder them. Every law is just an outworking of the one law of love. So while you are on the path of love you are obeying all God’s commands, and nothing will make you stumble into sin.

Conclusion: Light is good – seek it (though love)

If you don’t remember all the details and nuances of this passage and all the subpoints and particulars of this sermon, at least remember this: being in the light is good and being in the darkness is bad. Can we all agree on that? Is that easy for you to see in this text? They way of love leads into the light, which is a good place to be. And the way of non-love leads into the darkness, which is a horrible place where you definitely do not want to be.
One reason why John uses the images of darkness and light is because they are so broad. Light is connected with knowledge, clarity of understanding, truth, purity, righteousness, and joy, and darkness is connected with ignorance, lostness, error, sin, evil, and despair. So following the way of love touches on a whole lot of areas of life. Following the way of New Commandment-type love will improve your situation in many different ways. And falling off the path of love will darken your life in many different ways.
So my two applications for this passage are very simple: 1) avoid the darkness, because it is bad; and 2) seek the light, because it is really good. And that may seem a little on the elementary side to you, and it is – but we need it because our flesh still hasn’t made it out of elementary school. In fact, our flesh is worse than just being childish. It is really more like insanity. Think of the insanity of the flesh when it comes to hatred. Hatred is the way into the darkness, which is a path of destruction. It is the way of stumbling and falling and ignorance and evil and misery and death. And so what is our first impulse when someone hurts us? Our first impulse is to go the way of hatred rather than the way of love, right? To harbor unforgiveness and hard feelings and negative thoughts and grudges toward that person. Think about the incredible foolishness of that: “Oh – someone hurt me. I think I’ll destroy myself. I’ll just plunge into the darkness of anger and bitterness and self-pity and just destroy myself.” That’s the natural response of the flesh. “I don’t like being hurt, therefore I’m going to go take a path that leads to pain and devastation.” And so as elementary as it is, we need to be told – don’t run into the darkness. Nothing good happens in there.
Instead, when something in wrong in your life, look to New Commandment-type love to improve your situation. No matter what is wrong in your life – whether it be 
frustration with your kids, 
boredom at work, 
struggles in your marriage, 
depression, 
temptation, 
lack of direction, 
inability to understand Scripture or to find the wise choice in some decision; it is all darkness.
And the solution to darkness is light. And loving people is the path into greater light. So use love for people to solve your problems.
If you have darkness in your life, turn your attention to loving people with New Commandment love more. If you are depressed, step up your New Commandment-type love. If you are discouraged and have no energy and have no motivation and life is droning on and on with joyless monotony, let the pain of that drive you to say this: “The only solution for me is to experience greater fellowship with God. And that will mainly come through enjoying God by loving His people, and loving them because of how precious they are to Jesus Christ.”
If you are confused in the darkness and fog of some hard decision, and you need light from the Lord to show you which way to go, tell yourself, “I need to get into the light and the path into the light is the path of love. What can I do to increase my enjoyment of God through loving His people?”
If your husband is breaking your heart or your kids are driving you crazy tell yourself, “The only solution to this is for me to move farther into the wonderful, glorious light of the glory of God. And that pathway into that light is the pathway of pouring out my heart in love for my family after the pattern of Jesus’ love.”
It is amazing how an inward, selfish focus will backfire. When you are unhappy, the flesh tells you to focus on eliminating unpleasant things and increasing pleasant things so you will be happy. And so your focus turns in on yourself and on whether your circumstances are pleasant or unpleasant and whether or not people are treating you well. And that is a sure ticket to depression. All that does is fix your attention on where people are falling short in loving you, and it will make your miserable.
But if you have an attitude that says, “I am willing to suffer anything as long as I can have the joy that comes from nearness to the heart of God..,” and you realize that that joy comes in the greatest measure from loving the people God’s loves with New Commandment-type love, that is when Christ’s joy will be in you and will be made complete (Jn.15:10-12).

Benediction: Eph.2:4-10 because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions… 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus 

Overcoming Evil Part 1 Take Heart – You’re Winning! 2:12-14

Summary: Children in the faith especially need encouragement about forgiveness because it is so counterintuitive and because Satan works so hard at getting us to doubt it (to cripple us with guilt, to get us to give up, to diminish our ability to love God, and to dishonor God’s name). God is as eager to forgive you as He is to love His Son and glorify His name. Older saints need to be encouraged that despite what the innovators are saying they know the Ground of all being. (Children also know the Father in a very real way). And along this path from knowledge to knowledge is victory. Young people especially need to know that they have the strength to overpower Satan through the Word. These are the three main blessings of the New Covenant.

Introduction
The New Covenant
All the terms apply to all believers
Children & Forgiveness
Forgiveness
Why this is especially important for the spiritual children
The world: You can make up for past sin
Strategic for Satan to cause doubt over forgiveness
For His name’s Sake
The logic of grace
Fathers & Knowledge of Christ
Children & Knowledge of the Father
Young Men & Victory
Why the order?
Why the young need to know about victory
Conclusion

1 John 2:12-14 I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven for his name. 
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. 
I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. 

I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. 
14 I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. 
I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Introduction
Discouragement 
Imagine a woman who wakes up in the morning and can hardly get out of bed because she is so paralyzed with discouragement. All her efforts to raise her kids in the right way, her ministry at church, her housework – it all just seems to be futile effort that is accomplishing nothing. And the little bit it does accomplish brings her no joy. Or a man who just has the feeling that no matter how hard he tries he seems to experience nothing but defeat. The Christian life, to him, seems like nothing but trying and failing and trying and failing, until now he does not even know if he has it in him to even try much anymore. Other people seem to have so much more success than him, he wonders if they know some secret that for whatever reason he just cannot seem to obtain. And he is this far from just giving up. Discouragement can be one of the most painful and paralyzing things we face in life.
Whether or not those descriptions fit you at this time in your life, it is only a matter of time before the enemy will come after your joy. We are all susceptible to discouragement, and that is what today’s text is meant to address. 
This text has no imperative – no command. The purpose is not to get you to do anything. The purpose is simply to encourage. John wants to give his readers assurance and comfort and encouragement and motivation. And he does so by pointing out to them the wonderful benefits of their salvation. So all you have to do to put this lesson into practice is to be encouraged by it.
My guess is, that was John’s first desire when he got out his pen to write this book. But before he can assure them of the benefits of salvation he has to start out with one and a half chapters detailing exactly what it means to be saved. John does not want to risk giving assurance or comfort to someone who is not saved. So we get a chapter and a half of John explaining the fact that God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. That is really the best summary of that whole section we have studied so far. He starts with an introduction, and then from 1:5 all the way through 2:11 the point has been that anyone who remains in the darkness in an unrepentant way is lost, which means they are not near the presence of God, they do not have fellowship with God, they do not know God, and they are not in God.
And if anyone claims to be enlightened and know God and have fellowship with God and remain in God, then that person must be one who keeps (who treasures) the New Commandment and who repents of his sin, and who trusts in the atonement of Jesus Christ to cover his sin.
So now, by the time we finally get to 2:12, everybody knows exactly where they stand. There should be no more confusion in anyone’s mind at this point about whether or not they are truly saved. So this is kind of like when Jesus dismissed Judas from the upper room before He gave all those delightful words of encouragement in Jn.14-17. John is about to deliver some wonderful words of encouragement, but first he had to take some time to get the false Christians out of the room so they do not think this encouragement is for them and, at the same time, to solidify the confidence of the true Christians so none of them would fail to be encouraged because of lingering doubts about their salvation.
All the terms apply to all believers
Now that that work is done and we know for sure that we are saved, here comes the encouragement. Some of it he addresses to the children, some to fathers, and some to young men. But before we dive in to each of those I need to point out to you that what John says to each of these groups applies to all Christians. 
 
12 I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. 

We know from chapter one that that applies to all Christians. 

1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

So it is not just that the sins of one specific group in the church are forgiven. All our sins are forgiven.

13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. 

Again – it is not just the elders in the faith who know the Lord Jesus Christ.

2:3 This is how we are sure that we know Him…

Knowing God is another way of saying, “Being a Christian.” All Christians know Him.

13 …I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. 

That is the only direct statement in the book about defeating Satan directly, but there are a couple statements that are very close to the same idea. Chapter 4 talks about our overcoming the antichrists and chapter 5 talks about our overcoming the world (which, he goes on to say, is under the control of the evil one).
So these three words of encouragement apply to all believers. When John directs them at specific groups the point is not that they apply exclusively to those groups, but rather that they apply especially to those groups. There are certain benefits of being a Christian that the young ones especially need to be reminded of. And the same is true for the fathers and the youths.
It is also worth noting that John says absolutely nothing here about how to determine if you are a child or a youth or a father. That is not the point. The point is John is giving all kinds of encouragement to all kinds of Christians, and your job is to listen for whichever kind of encouragement you need and be encouraged by it.

Children & Forgiveness 

So let’s start with the first category.

12 I am writing to you, dear children

That is John’s favorite way to address his readers. He calls us that nine times in this little book. Normally it is a term of endearment for everyone in the church. But in this context, when he goes on to address fathers and young men, it is probably best to take “children” to refer to those who are younger in the faith. 
Forgiveness
John especially wants those people who have not been Christians very long to understand that their sins have been forgiven for the sake of Christ’s name.

because your sins have been forgiven 

The main verb in each of these encouragements (forgiven, known, and overcome) is in the perfect tense, and I believe it is most consistent with the way John uses perfects in the rest of the book to take these with a gnomic or present force. John very often uses the perfect in that way in this book. So the idea is not that the fathers knew Christ in the past and that is having lingering effects. It is talking about the fact that as a general rule they know Him now. And it is not that the young men defeated Satan at their conversion. The discussions about overcoming in chapters 4 and 5 also use the perfect tense but in both places it is clear that it is a current overcoming not a past overcoming. And if the second and third verbs are to be taken that way, most likely that is the way John meant the first one as well. You are being forgiven. You are forgiven as a general rule. That fits his earlier discussion of forgiveness in chapter 1 where forgiveness comes in response to confession. The idea of God forgiving all future sins before they are committed is not really a biblical idea. There is a promise for future forgiveness, but, in John’s perception especially, the actual forgiveness takes place after the sin is committed.
The moment you first believed, you were justified; which means you were given perfect legal standing in God’s sight. That does not change when you sin. When you sin, if you are a believer, you do not lose your justification. You do, however, forfeit a certain amount of nearness to God and intimacy. God is displeased. Then when you repent God restores His favor to you and intimacy is regained.
Why this is especially important for the spiritual children
So why is it so important that the children in the faith especially understand it? Evidently, John’s perception was that the ones who were younger in the faith struggled with understanding this.
And that makes sense, because the idea of total forgiveness is a concept so utterly foreign to this world that when you first become a Christian it can be extremely hard to accept and believe. And for that reason Satan tends to really go after new Christians on this front. He tries to use their guilt to destroy them. He does that with all of us, but especially new believers.

The world: You can make up for past sin
Past sin cannot be dealt with in any other way than through forgiveness. But accepting that requires humility. And so the world tries to invent ways of dealing with past sin that do not require humility and that are in their control. Like doing some good deed that makes up for something you did that was bad.
The idea of making up for sin is really a worldly idea, and yet it creeps in to our thinking all the time. Just this last week I realized Tracy was hurt by something I did and I asked her if I could do something to make it up to her. But that is worldly thinking. Showing her love in the present or future does not make up for anything.
The only thing that can be done about a sin in the past is forgiveness. Of course I should love her now, in the present, but that does not make up for the past. The only thing that can be done about sin in the past is for me to repent and for her to forgive. It is pride in us that wants to make up for past sin. Our flesh loves to imagine that it can erase its own guilt. Nothing you can do can erase guilt. The only way out is for the one you sinned against to forgive.

Strategic for Satan to cause doubt over forgiveness 
And so attacking on this point is a very strategic tactic for Satan. Just think of all the harm he can do if he can cloud your thinking on this issue. If he can manage to make you think of yourself as unforgiven, he has succeeded in getting you to doubt one of God’s most basic promises. 
Nothing pleases God like faith. You are never closer to God than when you are trusting Him. The most intimate act that can possibly take place between a human being and God is for God to make a promise to that person, and for that person to respond by believing and trusting. That is what Enoch did that was so pleasing to God, and without that it is impossible to please God. (Heb.11:5-6) So if God has promised to forgive, and God is supremely pleased by His people believing and trusting in His promises, then you can see why Satan would want to convince you that you are not forgiven (or that you might not be forgiven, and that you cannot know for sure).
If we cannot trust God at the most fundamental, basic level, how can we trust Him with anything else? If His promises about forgiveness are not clear enough or frequent enough in Scripture for us to believe them, and if He has not done enough to convince us that He is serious about those promises, then what promise is there in the Bible that we can believe?
Another reason Satan majors on this is so he can cripple you with discouragement. How many times in the New Testament do we read exhortations about staying encouraged?

Hebrews 12:3 Consider him who endured … so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
5 Do not lose heart when he rebukes you

Ephesians 3:13 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged

Colossians 3:21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

Hebrews 3:13 encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened 

2 Corinthians 4:1 since … we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 
15 All this is for your benefit … 16 Therefore we do not lose heart.

It is so important that we do not become discouraged. If you fight against Satan he cannot win. And so his best hope is to get you to just give up. He cannot stand against the weapons God has provided in the gospel, and so he works hard to just get you so discouraged that you just quit fighting. If he can get you thinking about all your many failures, and get you really down emotionally, and then he whispers in your ear, “You’ve already blown it. What does it matter what you do now? You’ve already sinned against God. You’re already hopelessly guilty – you might as well just indulge your desires completely now.”
It is easy to fall for that when you think you have unforgiven sin hanging over you. But if the slate is clean, then you are motivated not to mess it up. So John wants you to understand that the slate is clean! You need to understand that, to have success in the Christian life.
That is not to suggest you take your sin lightly. The more broken you are over your sin when you do sin, the more you will love God when He forgives you. But that only works if you have full confidence in the totality of the forgiveness. What an incredible, amazing thought that after all that you have done you could walk into this building this morning with a clean slate! 

Psalm 32:1-2 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.

So take heart. Your sins are forgiven! Rejoice that your names are written in heaven! Rejoice! 

Josh.7:10 The LORD said to Joshua, "Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?

That is a good question I think for a lot of people. What are you doing down on your face? If you have fallen – get back up. Your sins are forgiven. Another reason why Satan works so hard to get you to doubt forgiveness is so he can hinder your love for God. People who spend a lot of time beating themselves up over past failures often begin to develop a subtle feeling of resentment toward God. They feel like God is constantly angry with them, and they cannot do anything to change that. And it just dumps constant cold water on the fires of their love for God. It is hard to love someone who is holding a grudge against you. It is hard to love someone who is holding your past over your head all the time, so Satan works hard to paint a picture of God as holding grudges. And probably the biggest reason of all why Satan does this is to defame God’s name. God’s greatest desire is the glory and renown of His own name. And the most valuable thing for us is the glory and renown of His name, so Satan works hard to destroy that. Satan wants to portray a picture of God as an unloving, unforgiving ogre who has no mercy and no compassion.
So much of Satan’s strategy is riding on getting you to doubt God’s forgiveness. You can see why he is the accuser of the brethren. That tactic pays off more for him than anything else.
For His name’s Sake
Maybe you are sitting there thinking, OK, so how do I fight this? I know I shouldn’t entertain doubts all the time, but I just can’t help it. How can I become more confident about forgiveness?” John gives us a huge boost in our effort to overcome our doubts in the last three words of the sentence.

12 I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven for his name. 

When we doubt our forgiveness it is usually because we feel so unworthy of forgiveness, right? But God does not forgive anyone because of their worthiness. Worthiness to be forgiven is a ridiculous oxymoron. If you are worthy then you do not need forgiveness. God does not forgive because of our worthiness; He forgives because of His name. It is precisely because of your unworthiness that God is motivated to forgive when you are repentant, because it is through forgiving unworthy, repentant sinners that His name is magnified.

Psalm 79:9 Help us, O God our Savior, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your name's sake. 

Psalm 109:21 But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for your name's sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me. 

Jeremiah 14:7 Although our sins testify against us, O LORD, do something for the sake of your name. For our backsliding is great

Isaiah 48:9 For my own name's sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to cut you off.

The reason God forgives is for the sake of His name. The greatest thing that can ever happen is for the fame and renown of His name to be spread abroad and put on display. That is the most loving thing God could ever do for us. And one of the chief ways He accomplishes that is by forgiving unworthy sinners. That puts His mercy and grace on display. God does not want to just be merciful. He wants to put His mercy on display so everyone can see it and marvel at it and take delight in it. And that displaying and publishing of God’s wonderful attributes is His name.
And the more unworthy I am, and the more egregiously I have sinned against Him, and the more hopeless my condition; the more His name is glorified and the more His grace is put on display when He forgives me. That is one of the reasons why public confession is such a good thing. The more awareness everyone has of my unworthiness to be forgiven the more they will marvel at God when He forgives me.
So God’s main motive for forgiving us is His own name. If He forgave for lesser reasons He would not be as glorious. A lot of times when we overlook an offense it is really just because we do not want to deal with the discomfort of the whole thing so we just sweep it under the rug. Other times it is just out of laziness, or so that the person will owe us a favor, or to manipulate the person. If God forgave for those reasons it would be evil. But God’s forgiveness is never out of any motive other than the highest and best – His own glory. 

The logic of grace
This is why the logic of grace is so counter to the logic of works. 

Psalm 25:11 For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, for it is great. 

Human logic would say, “Please forgive me because my sin is small” or “Please forgive me even though my sin is great.” But the logic of grace says, “Forgive because my sin is great”! The greater your need the greater your occasion to request mercy from God. And the greater your sin the greater God’s glory when He forgives it. Any time you have an impulse that makes you reluctant to seek mercy and grace from God, realize that you have a drastically warped and incorrect understanding of the nature of God, and run to His Word to correct that. 
Does that mean we should sin more so that His name will be honored more? No, because while His forgiveness of sins brings Him great honor, our committing those sins brings Him great dishonor. And Jesus did not just die to forgive sin. He also died to prevent sin. (Tit.2:11) So we never sin for the sake of God’s glory. But we do seek forgiveness for the sake of His glory, and when we do that God is glorified in two ways. First, because He puts His mercy on display by forgiving you. And second, because His trustworthiness is put on display when you fully trust Him to forgive you completely.
Think about this the next time you are tempted to downplay your own guilt in order to save face. When we do that we glorify our own name at the expense of God’s name. The less serious we make our sin and guilt the less motive God has to be merciful, because the less it would put His glory on display if He showed mercy.
So if you struggle with trusting in God’s forgiveness just ask yourself – how motivated is God to forgive your sins completely? Remember the beginning of the chapter – where it says your sins are forgiven because Jesus is your advocate. All of God’s mercy to us is given as a favor from God the Father to God the Son. How eager is God to forgive you? His eagerness to forgive you matches His love for His own Son. Take all of God’s concern that He has for the glory of His own name, and add to that all the love the Father has for the Son, and the sum of those two added together is how motivated God is to forgive all the sins of those who repent and who are in Christ. So trust Him to forgive for His name’s sake and for the sake of His Son, and do not ever blaspheme God by assuming He will not follow through on His promises.
And when you think about your forgiveness, let it bring joy to your heart. When David sought forgiveness for his sin in Psalm 51 he said…

Psalm 51:8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice. 
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation 

The more joy you have in your forgiveness the more God is glorified. 

Fathers & Knowledge of Christ

After addressing the children, John turns to the fathers in verse 13.

13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. 

I take it “fathers” refers to those who have walked with the Lord for a long time. And for them it is especially important to understand the fact that they know him who is from the beginning. John began this book by introducing Jesus to us as “He who was from the beginning.” So we know this is a reference to Jesus.
Everyone who is a believer has a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus. But John feels a special urgency to say this to the older saints. We do not know for sure why that is, but I can make a guess. Remember we found that the false teachers that have shaken up this church were doctrinal innovators. They were adding to God’s Word and coming up with new, novel doctrines. and whenever people do that they are usually trying to appeal to the young. They paint the older people as washed-up old fogies who are too entrenched in tradition to be able to understand the new ways. They present all their novel, esoteric philosophies and all the young people are sitting there amazed saying, “That is so deep!” And the older people are saying, “Huh? That’s gibberish.” 
But when they are really slick teachers and everyone starts following them, and you know your mind is not what it used to be, as an older person you can start to think, “Maybe they’re right. Maybe my old mind is too slow to understand the really deep things.”
And John respectfully calls them fathers (even though he is probably older than most of them), and he says, “I’m writing to you to reaffirm to you that there is no secret, esoteric, hidden knowledge that rises any higher than the knowledge you have. You know personally the Eternal One, “Him who is from the beginning.” He existed for all of eternity past, which means He is the Source and Sustainer of all that exists and the very Ground of all being. There is no knowledge any higher or any deeper or any more profound than what you have.
Knowing a person, in the biblical sense, goes far beyond the intellectual aspect. It is a relational idea. Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived a child. (Gn.4:1) God told Israel I have known only you out of all the clans of the earth (Amos 3:2). Knowing, in this context, points to an intensely personal and intimate relationship. It speaks of a closeness where there is mutual love and affection, and delight in one another.
Do not be intimidated by the dizzying intellect of the doctrinal innovators who come out with the philosophic religio-babel and impress everyone with the depth of their understanding. If they are not walking in the light - if they have departed from the truth of the Gospel, or they are not treasuring the New Commandment in their hearts; then they are in the darkness, and all their brilliance and enlightened philosophy is nothing but a lot of aimless stumbling around in blindness and ignorance.

Children & Knowledge of the Father

One of the most difficult questions to answer about this text is, “Why does John repeat the three statements?” But if you look carefully at the text you will notice that it is not an exact repetition. What he says the second time to fathers is identical to the first time. What he says to young men the second time is almost identical – he just adds a clause about their strength. But what he says to the children is completely different. The first time he tells them their sins are forgiven, and the second time he talks about them knowing the Father.
If John makes three statements, then repeats two almost verbatim but completely changes the third, that has the effect of drawing attention to the one that is changed. So it seems that John wants to especially underscore the fact that the children know the Father.
And it is not hard to figure out why he would do that. If he just points out the fact that the older saints know Him who was from the beginning that could lead to some real misunderstanding. It might be assumed that the Christian life is a progression that starts with having your sins forgiven at the beginning, and later on ends up with finally coming to know of God later on. So only the older saints really know God. And I think that is an implication that John wants to avoid. And so he says…

I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. 

Special, intimate knowledge of God is not reserved only for the most advanced or most highly enlightened. It is a privilege that belongs to absolutely every one of God’s children.
To the fathers John said, “You know Him who was from the beginning” (referring to Christ). There he wanted to emphasize the fact that they had a personal relationship with the One who is the Beginning and the Ground of all being. But to the children he speaks of knowing the Father. I think the point of that is to say, “Look, the definition of being a child is you have a father.” It wouldn’t make any sense to say children in the faith do not know God, because if anyone knows a father it is his child. As Christians we all know God personally, from the least of us to the greatest.
One of the things that occurred to me as I studied this passage this week was the fact that what John is describing in these verses is nothing less that the fulfillment of the promise of the New Covenant. 
Isaiah promised the Messiah would come and usher in a new age of light. Jeremiah described that very same thing in terms of a New Covenant. 

Jeremiah 31:33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

In this glorious New Covenant, all of God’s people will know Him personally - from the least to the greatest, and all of them will be forgiven.
The Christian life is a progression from knowledge to knowledge. The knowledge a child has of his parents is wonderful, but the knowledge of a husband and wife is much greater. There are levels of love and intimacy that can only come through mature, rational understanding that far exceed what a child can ever experience. So the Christian life is all about knowing God, from beginning to end. It is based on the foundation of full forgiveness of sins, and on that foundation a love relationship of knowing God is built. There are a lot of really smart people in this world but you - YOU, children and fathers, all of you who are in Christ know God! No one else in this world – not even the most brilliant genius, has knowledge that is anything like that.

Young Men & Victory 

So the Christian journey is from knowledge to knowledge, and along the way in this journey is victory. In between the time of childhood and the time of adulthood is the time of youth, and John connects that with triumph. 

1 John 2:13 … I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. 
14 … I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one. 

The third thing Jeremiah emphasized about the New Covenant was that it would be characterized by victory rather than defeat.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 "…I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 

The Church will not do what Israel did. God will see to it that His Church overcomes the enemy and remains loyal to Him. God has promised to give us all the strength we need to realize victory. That is true for every believer, but it is especially important for the young men to be reminded of this.
Why the order?
Another one of the many puzzling things about this passage is John’s order. Instead of going from children to youth to fathers, he mentions children first, then fathers, then youth. He does that both times. It seems to me the intended effect of that is probably to draw attention to the third category.
Why the young need to know about victory
Evidently some of the younger Christians were despairing of their ability to gain victory in the warfare. That is easy to do. When you are young you can get to thinking, “I’m so dominated by passions and desires and temptations. I don’t think I can stand against them.”

2 Timothy 2:22 Flee the lusts of youth

That is not just talking about sexual lust, although it includes that. It is a word that refers to any strong desire. And Paul calls them “lusts of youth,” indicating that when you are young they are especially powerful.
And so when you are young and you get battered around by intense sinful desires, and deceived and outsmarted by the devil at every turn, you can begin to wonder if you have what it takes to be victorious in this war. And John really wants to encourage you.

12 …I am writing to you, young men, because you overcome the evil one. 

Then he steps it up a notch in verse 14.

I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you overcome the evil one.

If you know the Lord you are strong. If you are a Christian then the Word of God lives in you and that makes you stronger than the evil one.
We are like the Israelites taking over the Promised Land – we do not have to lose any battles.

Romans 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. 

When Jesus Christ finally crushes the life out of Satan once for all He is going to use your foot to do it. You are strong, and your strength comes from the Word. The areas where it seems impossible for you to gain victory – you can gain victory. You have access to the omnipotent power of Christ through His Word. That is not to say it is easy. It is anything but easy. Nor is it automatic. But it is possible. God will supply you with the strength that you need to be victorious. 
And when I say “victorious” I am not just talking about resisting temptation. This word “overcome” is not primarily a defensive idea. It is an offensive one. You have the power to go into Satan’s territory and wreak havoc on his whole operation. Just by proclaiming the gospel you can crush his fortresses to powder.
God gives young people especially the zeal and energy to fearlessly proclaim the truth, and that makes you absolutely invincible. It demolishes what Satan is trying to do. Even in your human weakness, you can mumble and stumble your way through presenting the gospel to people and it will have divine power to demolish strongholds. And souls will be snatched right out of the enemy’s grasp and pulled right into the kingdom. It is like we sing in that song – “He’s got all the power you need.”
In your Christian life God is going to call you to do some seemingly impossible things. And humanly they are impossible, but then through His Word He s going to supply you with enough power to do them.
Do not downplay the degree of divine power that is at work in you. If it were not for that awesome power you would be dead right now. Unbelievers are still standing because Satan is not fighting against them. But the most powerful evil being in existence is fighting against you – doing everything in his power to utterly destroy you. And you are still here. You are still here because there is power at work in you that is beyond anything you can possibly imagine.
There are sins that you used to struggle with that are gone now. And every one of those is a crippling defeat of Satan’s work. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of temptations you have resisted. There are countless acts of righteousness that he did everything in his power to prevent and failed. He has gone up against you head to head thousands of times, and thousands of times has been knocked flat through the power of the Word. Have you lost some battles too? Of course. But only when you have let go of the power of the Word that is available to you. Which is great news. That means the problem is not lack of power! You are strong, and as a rule you defeat the evil one.

Conclusion

Last night the Lord gave me an opportunity to test this study. As I was driving home from a disappointing meeting a wave of despondency came over me. I was glad for the opportunity to put the principles I had learned in this study into practice, but the first thing I noticed was something very strange. There was a reluctance in my soul to do it. It was like my soul was saying, “I don’t want to pursue joy right now. I just want to drop into self-pity for a while.” There is something alluring about the slough of despond. Something in us is actually tempted by discouragement. And so when the feelings of discouragement first hit they must be resisted just like any other sin. Preach to your soul about the importance of joy!
Streams of tears flowed from the eyes of the prophet Jeremiah over the apostasy of his people back in the days of the Old Covenant. Oh, how the faithful over the centuries must have longed for the days of this amazing New Covenant that Jeremiah wrote about. They dreamed of a time when all of God’s people would know Him – from the least to the greatest. They fanaticized about a time when all the sins of all God’s people would be completely forgiven. And when there would be triumph and victory and loyalty to the covenant rather than apostasy and punishment and defeat. 
That age has been inaugurated. The time is now. So do not be discouraged. What are you doing on your face? Get up! What sorrow do you have in your life that is even worth comparing to these glorious realities? What could you possibly be discouraged about, if you know with certainty that all your sins are forgiven? And you know the Father in the way a child knows his daddy? And you have a personal relationship with the One who is the Ground of all being? And you have access to supernatural strength that can give you victory over the most powerful evil being there is? Take heart, and rejoice in the unspeakable blessings of your salvation. 

Benediction: Romans 8:33-39 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-- more than that, who was raised to life-- is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Overcoming Evil Part 2 The Love God Hates 2:15-17

Summary: First command in the book: Do not love the world (Love is the most important indicator of the heart). Worldliness is a matter of what you love, not involvement with the culture. Love is emotion (desire). The world is the attitude of unbelievers that ignores God. It causes the desire of the flesh (bodily desires without respect to God’s will), the desire of the eyes (wanting what you see), and the pride of life (seeking importance through temporal things). That is incompatible with love for God because the origins of the desires arise from opposite beliefs about what is good. So you can change your desires. Another reason not to love the world is it is transient – short-lived pleasure rather than continual.

Introduction
Definitions
How much separation from the culture?
Not geographic separation, but a matter of love
1.	The desire of the flesh
At what point does physical desire become sinful? When it is worldly
The right kind of desire for stuff
2.	The desire of the eyes
3.	The pride of life
Reason 1: Incompatible with love for God
The source of your desires
That’s why they cannot coexist
Great news – you can change your desires!
Persuasion is caused by information and experience
Inference #1
Inference #2
What desiring God along looks like
Reason #2 The world is transient
Conclusion

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. 
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 
16 For everything in the world--the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes and the pride of possessions--comes not from the Father but from the world. 
17 The world and its desire pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 

Introduction
The most important issue: What you love and do not love
Today we encounter the very first command in the book of 1 John. The first major section was devoted to teaching us what constitutes a true Christian as opposed to a phony Christian. Then, once it was established who is saved and who is not, John turned his attention to encouraging the saved folks, and he does that by reminding us that our sins are forgiven and we know the Lord, and we have victory over the enemy. That brings us up to 2:15 where we find the first imperative in the book and it comes right at the beginning of the sentence. 

15 Do not love…

The first direct command in the book is a command not to love something. Far more than anything else God is concerned about what you love and do not love, because what you love and do not love are the most accurate indicators of the righteousness or unrighteousness in your heart. Your actions do not always tell the truth about what is in your heart (because you can do them with a bad motive). Your words do not always tell the truth about the condition of your heart (because you can lie). Not even your thoughts are always accurate indicators of what is truly inside you (there is such a thing as self-deception). But your affections never lie. What you love and do not love is a foolproof way of measuring your godliness. It is impossible to truly delight in righteousness without actually being righteous. And it is impossible to delight in evil without actually being evil. What you love and delight in is the most accurate measure of what you are. We see this again and again in Scripture - evil people are evil because of what they love, and righteous people are righteous because of what they love.

2 Tim.3:1-5 “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, … without love, … not lovers of the good, … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

Ps.97:10 Let those who love the LORD hate evil.

Ps.119:104 I hate every wrong path.

1 Tim.3:2,3 The overseer … must not be a lover of money but rather one who loves what is good.

Ro.12:9 Hate what is evil

Even if you accept the gospel as being true, if you do not love it you are lost.

2 Thessalonians 2:10 (those who are perishing) perish because they refused to love the truth 

So God cares more about what you love or do not love than anything else. In fact, it is safe to say that is the only thing God cares about in your heart. That is why the entire law can be summed up in one command – love God.
Do not fall in love with the enemy
Now let’s think about the context of where this command falls in 1 John. John just got done telling us about this wonderful victory we have over the evil one. You have the devil in a stranglehold. He is down on the ground and your hand is around his neck, your boot on his face, and his nose is squished to the side. That is the picture from last week. Verses 12-14 describe this victory, and then here in verse 15 John warns us not to love the world (which is Satan’s kingdom). So what John is saying is, “You’ve got him in a stranglehold. Now just try not to fall in love with him. If you can just keep from falling in love with him and his world then you’ve got him.”
Satan does not have the firepower to overcome you – not with the Word of God on your side. So he does not even try to overpower you. What he does instead is try to entice you to fall in love with his world. He goes after your heart. The great, cosmic war between God and Satan is, in many ways, a fight over the affections of men. That is what both God and Satan are after.
You can see that in the tragic story of Demas. Demas was an associate of Paul’s, and he was a major player in the Church. He is mentioned with people like Luke and Mark and Ephaphras and Paul. Paul called him a fellow-worker. Demas even sent greeting in the books of Colossians and Philemon. But when the time came when Paul was going to be executed for his faith, Demas abandoned him. And it was not because Satan overpowered him. It was because he fell in love with the world.

2 Timothy 4:9-10 Do your best to come to me quickly, 10 for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me

This is how Satan comes after you. When Jesus told the parable of the soils He was showing the various ways Satan destroys people. The first one has to do with the intellect – failure to understand the gospel. The second one is persecution. And then there is a third strategy.

Mark 4:18-19 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

The word “worries” just refers to the daily distractions of life. That, combined with the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things, chokes out the Word in their hearts.

Definitions
Worldliness
How much separation from the culture?
In John 17 Jesus talked about us being in the world and not of the world, and throughout church history there has been debate about exactly how much involvement we should have with the culture. On the one hand we are to be salt and light in the world. The Great Commission was not, “Retreat” but “Go!”

1 Corinthians 5:9-10 I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral … In that case you would have to leave this world.

So we are to be in the world.
But on the other hand God calls us to come out from among them and be separate (2 Cor.6:17). We are to be different and set apart. We are not to be of the world.

Not geographic separation, but a matter of love

So what should we do? Should we be like monks and retreat to a monastery? Or like the Amish, who separate themselves from as much of the culture as possible? In this passage we see that the answer to those questions is really very simple. Separation from the world is not a matter of where you live, but what you love.
Worldliness is not mainly a matter of behaviors (drinking, smoking, gambling, etc.) Worldliness is a matter of what you love. The Quaker who sits in his primitive home that he built with primitive tools who has worldly desires in his heart is guilty of worldliness. And the person who lives right in the heart of the city and is deeply involved in the culture, but who loves nothing in this world is not guilty of worldliness. We are to be in the world and not of the world. Many Christians today have it backward – they are of the world and not in the world. They retreat from missions and evangelism, but in their hearts are all kinds of worldly desires.
So should we move away from society and reject modern technology? Or should we go right into the bars and make friends so we can win them to Christ? The answer is we should love God and not the world. The person who goes into the bar for evangelism has to make an honest examination of his heart. Is he going in there because deep down he is attracted to that lifestyle? Or is he going in there because his love for God compels him to reach out to the lost even though he is repulsed by that lifestyle? It is not a matter of where you go; it is a matter of what you love.
Love
So let’s talk about what love is. Most of you have probably been taught that the Greek word for love here (agape), refers to a special divine love that is fundamentally different from human love, and that is devoid of emotion. It is an act of the will and has nothing to do with feeling. That is an idea that came from the philosophy of Plato, and has been popularized in our time by a book by Anders Nygren called Agape and Eros. D.A. Carson says the idea of non-emotional love probably comes from the philosophers, who say that God must be above emotion and therefore cannot feel anything. That is what human philosophy says. Let’s take a look at what the Apostle John says.

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. … 16 For everything in the world--the desire of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the boasting of life--comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desire pass away 

John is very clear – love is all about desire. He says, “Do not love the world. Why? Because that kind of desire does not come from God.” He is using love and desire synonymously. 
The commentators who cling to the non-emotional theory of love end up saying that John is suddenly using a totally different definition of agape here than the normal definition. But that does not work. There is no room in this passage for two different definitions for love. You cannot switch back and forth between definitions, because the love you are not supposed to have for the world is the very same love that you are supposed to have for God. Desire is at the core of love.
The world
So now we understand what love is; let’s think through what the world is. John uses the term world to refer to unbelievers. And in this context it is specifically the values and beliefs of the non-Christian culture. If you summarize those values and beliefs here is what you get: “What you see when you look around is all there is.” That is what is wrong with the way the world thinks. They think this world is all there is. So this command is an amazing command when you think about how it sounds to an unbeliever. 

1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. 

For them the world is all there is. So they are not allowed to love anything. This is a radical command.
The thing that makes the world worldly is the fact that they do not take God into consideration. They do not believe anything that God said if it does not already seem true to them. What you can observe through natural perception is ultimate reality, and that is all there is. And buying in to that way of thinking will produce certain desires.

16 For everything in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the boasting of life--comes not from the Father but from the world. 

Let’s take those one at a time.

The desire of the flesh
First, the desire of the flesh. Some translations say lust. This word can refer to lust or it can just mean desire. Here the idea is that it is desire driven by bodily appetites.
Bodily appetites are given to us by God. It is a good thing that you get thirsty and desire water. It is a good thing that you desire food, and rest and sex and physical pleasure. Those are all God-given appetites. 
At what point does physical desire become sinful? When it is worldly
So what makes a physical desire become sinful? Most of the time people say it becomes sinful when it gets out of balance. If you eat the right amount it is good, if you eat a little too much that is OK, but if you eat way too much that is gluttony. One time a fellow pastor asked Charles Spurgeon, “Don’t you think all your smoking hurts your testimony?” Spurgeon replied, "If I ever smoke to excess." "And what would that be?" And Spurgeon said, "If I smoked two cigars at the same time."
But the real issue is not how much you indulge in something. What makes it sinful or righteous is where the desire comes from. Does it come from your love for God or from your love for the world? If it comes from the world it is wrong – no matter how much you indulge. In fact, having that desire is sin even if you do not indulge at all.
Satan tried this on Jesus. He came to Jesus when Jesus was literally starving and tried to entice Jesus to turn stones to bread and fulfill His bodily appetites without regard to the will of God. It did not work on Jesus but it did on the readers of James.

James 4:1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Do not they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but do not get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. 

When you lift the impulses for immediate, earthly pleasure above the will of God then you will also put it ahead of loving others, which means you respond with anger when your desires are not fulfilled. If you have a problem with anger – this is the place to look.

You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses! Do not you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

Just as a wife should seek her sexual fulfillment only from her husband and no one else, so we should seek our joy from God and nowhere else. And if we seek joy from any other source besides God, James says we are adulteresses. 
James calls it friendship with the world; John calls it love for the world – either way it should repulse us.

Jeremiah 15:17 I never sat in the company of revelers, never made merry with them; I sat alone because your hand was on me and you had filled me with indignation.

The heart that loves God cannot stand earthly things being pointed to as treasures.
The right kind of desire for stuff
So is it wrong to desire earthly things? Is it wrong to desire a house to live in, or clothes to wear, or food to eat? Is it wrong for me to desire my wife? Yes, it is, if those desires are worldly. And if they are desires that terminate on that earthly pleasure and point to that earthly thing as the source of joy, they are worldly. But if they spring from my desire for fellowship with God then they are worship.

The desire of the eyes
The desire of the flesh is the physical impulse; this is the mental and emotional impulse. It is when you have to have something because you saw it. You are going along just fine – perfectly content with what you have, and then suddenly something enters your field of vision, and you have to have it. This is why advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry. We go from being perfectly content without something to being desperate to have it just because someone put it in front of our hungry, greedy eyes.
Misuse of your eyes can destroy your life in a hurry – just ask Lot’s wife. Achan turned his eyes to some of the forbidden treasures and the earth opened and swallowed him alive. Samson saw something he wanted with his eyes, and it ended up costing him his eyes (and his life). David’s eyes wandered one day and it caused unbelievable disaster for the rest of his life. That is why Job made a covenant with his eyes (Job 31:1), and David said…

Psalm 101:3 I will set before my eyes no vile thing 

Psalm 119:37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things

Satan tried this one on Jesus too.

Matthew 4:8-9 the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 "All this I will give you," he said,

He did not just offer it to Jesus, he went to the trouble to transport Jesus all the way up to a high mountain so that Jesus could see it all with His eyes. Satan was hoping he could get to Jesus through the desire of the eyes.
This can be a very powerful thing. Your eyes are the favorite tools of covetousness. For some people it is just as sinful to pick up the Sunday newspaper ads as to pick up a Playboy. You see the computers or the clothes or the cars or the plasma TVs or the games and your whole being is aflame with desire for temporal things, and everything in you is convinced that those are the real source of joy. And at that moment if you compare fellowship with God to the pleasure of those things, those things seem like a mountain of pleasure and fellowship with God seems like a pebble. 
If that is what happens in your heart then it is a sin for you to look at those ads. Susanna Wesley had some very wise counsel. She said, "Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

The pride of life
The word translated “life” here is bios, and it refers to temporal life. John only uses this word one other time and that is in 3:17, where it is translated “possessions.”

1 John 3:17 If anyone has material possessions (lit. the bios of the world) and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?

Bios is also the word Luke uses in the parable of the soils.

Luke 8:14 … as they go on their way they are choked by the worries, riches and pleasures of bios.

So the pride of life is when you gain your meaning, importance, and significance from temporal things rather than eternal things. It is when you crave esteem from man more than esteem from God.
The variety of earthly things that make us feel important is so wide. We are all tempted by pride in different ways. For some it is where you went to school. For others it is your job. For others it is your skills. For others it is your money. For others it is your looks. For others it is the experiences you have been through. For others it is your education or intelligence. For others it is reputation or popularity or the praise of some certain person. For others it is being well-known. For others it is who you know or who you have met or where you have been. For others it is social status.
When the Bible forbids pride and self-exaltation, what is the solution to that? Does God want us to strive for unimportance and meaninglessness and purposelessness and irrelevance in your life? Just the opposite. Jesus taught us how to become great in the Kingdom of God. The issue is not to strive for unimportance. Go ahead and strive for importance and greatness. The issue is what do you believe makes you important or great? Is your boast in knowing God, as it should be; or is it in some temporal thing? The pride of life is when your natural, God-given appetite for meaning and significance and greatness is directed to temporal things.
And the tricky thing about it is the fact that you do not actually have to have any of those things for them to be your boast. If you regard any of them as the measuring stick of greatness, whether you have it or not you are guilty of that aspect of loving the world. Maybe you do not have much of an education, but you are embarrassed about it. Maybe you do not have much money but you still look to wealth as the thing that would give you importance if you could just get it. Maybe you are not very good looking – but you covet physical attractiveness as the thing that would make you somebody. All those things I mentioned – job, skills, experiences, reputation, popularity, fame, social status - whether you have them or not, if you regard them as the measure of your importance you are infected with the pride of this life.
Sometimes this comes out in your assumptions about how others view you. You get around someone who has those things and assume they are looking down on you for not having them. And you walk away saying, “Those snobs – did you see how they were looking down their noses at me?” And in reality these people are not looking down on you at all. You just assume they are because in your heart you regard what they have as the measure of importance.
Do you get upset when you do not receive recognition from men for what you have done? Or does your heart care only about approval from God? Which would make your day more – getting a call from a network TV news program wanting to interview you for your outstanding whatever, or reading in God’s Word that He is going to crown you with glory someday for your faithfulness to Him?
Summary
So what is love for the world? It is looking to the world’s pleasures for your joy and looking to the world’s accolades for your importance. What is loving God? It is looking to God for your joy and to His accolades for your importance.
When you use your strength to obtain the world’s delights, and when the thoughts of your mind are fixed on the world, and when your heart and soul crave what the world offers; then you are loving the world with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And do not ever fall for the lie that it is harmless. Love for the world is lethal. It is especially dangerous because it can lay hidden deep inside your heart. The people in the parable of the soils are zealous and excited about spiritual things for a while. But later on they are brought down by their love for the world.
In Demas’ case it did not show itself until it came down to life or death. For all those years he served right alongside Paul and the others and there did not seem to be any indication that there was love for the world in his heart. Satan is content to fasten the ropes around your neck and then give you lots of slack – not pulling on it until the last minute. But be assured, if you love this world he has those ropes around you. And when the time comes for him to pull on them, you will fall.

Reason 1: Incompatible with love for God
Certain loves are incompatible 
So John says, “Do not love the world.” And in the second half of verse 15 he tells us why.

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

Do not love the world because that is incompatible with loving God. You cannot love both.

Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Why is that? Why are those two loves so mutually exclusive? Not all loves are mutually exclusive. For example, my kids do not come to me and say, “Dad – you can love me or you can love my sister; but not both.” Some kinds of love are exclusive, and others are not. So why is it that you cannot love both God and the world? John gives us the answer in verse 16.
Incompatible because those desires do not come from God
This is where this really gets interesting. The reason love for the world and love for God are incompatible is because of the source of the desires.

The source of your desires

16 For everything in the world … comes not from the Father but from the world. 

Think about the implications of that word “from.” That word means “because of.” 
We tend to think our desires are just built in to our DNA like our eye color or our gender. But that is not the case. Your desires have a source outside of you. They do not come initially from you. They come from one of two sources – the world or God. When you have a desire in your soul, that desire is there because someone made you think that thing was a good source of joy. The world is constantly preaching to you to persuade you that its temporary pleasures are the greatest treasures and the best sources of the highest joy, and God is telling you that His river of delights is the greatest treasure and the best source of the highest joy. When you desire one or the other it is because you were convinced by the argument of one or the other.
The unbelieving culture gives you messages designed to persuade you of the value of temporal things apart from God. Happiness will come from a car. Joy is a product of recreation. Having a relationship with some wonderful person of the opposite sex will satisfy the appetites of your soul. When you watch enough of their commercials, and immerse yourself deeply enough in their conversations, and read enough of their magazines or websites, or spend enough time window shopping in their malls – over time your soul will be persuaded by their message: Yes! Joy is to be found in temporal things in and of themselves. 
Satan has a lot of pulpits that preach his message. Ask yourself: “Which one of those is the most effective in my life?” The messages from this world that cause worldly desires in me – where do they come from?
So remember – worldliness is not a matter of over-indulgence vs. moderation. The issue is what is the source of your desires? Every desire I have needs to pass this test: “Where did this desire come from?” It either came from listening to the world or from listening to God. The only desires we are permitted to have are the ones that come from God.
Loving God means desiring nothing but Him. Any worldly idea, attitude, belief, experience, theory, viewpoint, judgment, opinion, or argument that causes you to be attracted to temporal things above eternal things must be avoided at all costs.

That’s why they cannot coexist 
So can you see why love for the world and love for God are so incompatible? They cannot possibly coexist because desire for the world originates from different beliefs than desire for God. And you cannot believe opposite things simultaneously. Love for the world means desiring the world, and desire for the world comes when you believe the world’s message. Love for God means desiring God, and desire for God comes when you believe God’s message. And you cannot believe both at the same time. I can love all my kids simultaneously because love for them all comes from the same source and arise from the same beliefs. But love for God and love for the world come from opposite sources, and they rise form opposite beliefs, and so they cannot coexist. 

Great news – you can change your desires!
It was kind of a new thought to me this week when I realized this passage is teaching that my desires are not inherent in me – they come from an outside source. That is fantastic news! Do you realize what that means? It means you can change your desires! If you place yourself in a position of being influenced by the world’s preaching, your desires will be for the world. And if you place yourself in a position of being influenced by the truth of God, your desires will be for the things God says are most pleasing.
Now, when you hear that you might think, “It does not seem to work for me. I come to church every week, I take notes, I listen to preaching on the radio, I read my Bible, I read books, but still it does not seem to change my desires for worldly things.”
Persuasion is caused by information and experience 
What you need to realize is that there are two things that cause persuasion – information and experience. It is very difficult to believe something that is contrary to your experience, even if you have a lot of good intellectual evidence to support it. If every time you have eaten a grape it is been sour, you could listen to sermon after sermon telling you that grapes are sweet and it would be hard for you to believe until you actually ate a sweet one. Experience is the most powerful persuader of the soul. So when you go in for your devotions in the morning and it is boring and hard and unpleasant and burdensome, and then you indulge in some worldly pleasure and it is exciting and thrilling and pleasurable, no matter how long I stand up here and preach to you about how delightful the presence of God is, it is going to be really, really hard for you to be convinced that fellowship with Him really is more pleasurable and delightful than anything the world offers.

Inference #1
There are two inferences we can draw from that – one on the positive side and one on the negative side. The positive is this – it is critically important that you use experiences of joy to persuade your soul of the truth of Scripture. When you experience any peace from God, or any joy, or any courage or comfort or intimacy or confidence or any other good thing - make much of that experience. And make sure you attribute that to the presence of God and nothing else. If you have a sensation of joy or hope or peace it is not because it is a beautiful spring day, it is not because you happen to be in a good mood due to hormones, it is not because of a good night’s sleep - it is because of an experience of the presence of God. It may be that God allowed you to experience the joy of His presence through some other means like a beautiful spring morning, but it is His presence and not the beautiful morning that was the cause of the joy (or the peace or whatever other benefit). And we know that is true because there are some beautiful spring mornings that do not cause joy in our hearts at all. So the joy does not come from the morning but from the presence of God. And unless you make a point of telling your soul that each time you are happy, then your soul will attribute the joy to some other source and you will not make any progress in changing your desires so that you desire the presence of God more. Use every joy of life to train your soul to crave more of the presence of God.
Inference #2
On the negative side, realize that every time you cave in to your lusts, and you indulge in some pleasure in a sinful way, you preach a very powerful sermon to your soul. You cave in to a temptation, and the result is a strong sensation of pleasure. You may repent and God will forgive – but think of the damage that is done to your soul. Your soul is now strongly persuaded that sin does indeed pay off. It really is the source of joy. Experiencing that pleasure cements into your soul the message of the world that the greatest joy is to be found in temporal pleasures.
What desiring God along looks like
So what does it look like to desire God alone? When I go on vacation, before I leave I remind myself that this vacation could be delightful or it could turn out to be miserable. It could satisfy the cravings of my soul or leave me unhappy and unsatisfied. And the only factor that will determine whether it is one or the other is whether or not God enables me to experience the grace of His presence through the vacation. 
The same goes for the way we think after an enjoyable experience – and during the experience. The more we learn to attribute the joy to the presence of God the more we will realize what an incredibly delightful thing the presence of God is. 

Reason #2 The world is transient 
The first reason why you cannot love both God and the world is because those two loves are incompatible, and they are incompatible because of the fact that they involve desires that come from opposite beliefs. Then in verse 17 John gives us another reason why not to love the world.

17 The world and its desire pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 

You attach yourself to whatever you love, so its fate becomes yours. Where your treasure is there your heart will be (Mt.6:20) – and there your destiny will be. The world is unstable and unreliable and it falters and fails, and the pleasures that go along with it are similarly unstable and transitory. Do earthly things bring sensations of pleasure? Yes – when God allows them to. But if that pleasure is divorced from fellowship with God it is fleeting and temporary. Indulging in an earthly pleasure apart from fellowship with God is like pulling a fruit tree out of the ground and putting it in your house. You can enjoy the fruit for a few days, but soon the tree will wither die. It will not be able to supply ongoing satisfaction. Tear the pleasures of this world from the roots of God’s joy-supplying grace, and they will dry up.
Think of the things you have been tempted to turn to for your joy. Does the joy last? Is it deep enough joy to carry you through suffering like the joy from God is? When you are depressed and you eat an entire bag of potato chips, has that worked pretty well at curing your depression? You finish the bag and then go skipping out of the house overflowing with joy? The chips taste good – no doubt about that. But one minute after finishing the bag you are more depressed than ever.
There are other earthly pleasures that last a little bit longer than potato chips, but eventually they fade away too. And when they do they leave gaping hole of emptiness bigger than the one you started with. But the one who does God’s will is perpetually blessed.
No reasonable person forfeits greater, more long-term happiness for shorter, shallower, short-term happiness. An hour before Thanksgiving dinner you might have a craving for a snack, but even the most gluttonous among us can usually resist that temptation – because we really want to be able to enjoy the dinner. If you have tickets to a two week, all-expense paid vacation to your dream vacation, you do not wake up the morning of your flight and say, “This bed feels so good – I think I’ll just sleep in and forfeit the vacation.” Not even the most slothful among us would do that.
We understand saying no to a tiny joy in order to obtain a huge joy. The only time we have a problem with this is when the greater joy is pushed far enough into the future so that it falls outside of the range of our little attention span. A little child does not want to postpone gratification even for a moment – no matter how great the greater joy is. The more we mature the longer we are willing to wait and the more temporary pleasure we are willing to give up for a greater joy. But even as adults we have limitations on our attention span and we make irrational decisions if the greater joy is too far off or too intangible or requires too much faith in God’s promises. If the promise of reward is too far off, our flesh tells us it is better to just forfeit that for immediate, shallow pleasure. And Scripture shows us the folly of that and how irrational it is by shrinking down the time frame.

Proverbs 26:15 The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth.

You are sitting there at the dinner table and you are famished. You are so hungry that your stomach is growling and you cannot wait to eat. So you just dig in, and bury your hand in the bucket of KFC, and grab hold of a nice, juicy piece of chicken, and then you say, “I do not feeling like doing the hard work of lifting the piece of chicken out of the bucket and up to my mouth,” so you just give up and stay in that position the whole meal. You trade off the large enjoyment of the meal for the tiny little enjoyment of not having to lift your hand back up out of the bucket. What that proverb is trying to show us is that it is ridiculous to forfeit a large joy to avoid the hardship when it is just one second of hardship. And it is just as ridiculous to forfeit eternal joy just to avoid a lifetime of hardship. Even if you have to suffer for 90 years – that is not even one second in comparison with eternity. When we forfeit eternal joy for any temporal pleasure we are acting like irrational little children.
John is not arguing against pursuing pleasure. His whole point is that the world should be rejected precisely because it does not provide enough pleasure. Its pleasure comes to an end. That is cheesy. The pleasures of this world are too small and too shallow and too short to be worth anything.

Conclusion
I write to you young men because you are strong and you overcome the evil one. You have got the enemy in a strangle hold. Do not fall in love with him. Be persuaded instead by the Lord’s message so your desires will come from Him. Delight yourself in His will and you will have joy forever.

Benediction: 1 Corinthians 16:22-24 If anyone does not love the Lord-- a curse be on him. Come, O Lord! (Maranatha) 23 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. 24 My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Overcoming Evil Part 3 The Antichrists are Here! 2:18

Summary: This whole section is a warning about deception. They had heard about the antichrist (an end-times figure who would come and oppose Christ by deceiving many). Context: guard against deception by loving God rather than the world. The activity of the many antichrists shows that it is the end (fulfillment of the ages, not stopping point).

Introduction (warning about deception)
The Antichrist: Satan’s master plan of deception
Pinning the tail on the antichrist
Jesus and Daniel
70 AD?
Deception through miracles
The last hour – Crunch time
Devotionals

1 John 2:18-27 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 
19 They went out from us, but they were not from us. For if they had been from us, they would have remained with us; but [it was] in order to be shown that none of them were from us. 
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know [the truth]. 
21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
 24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us--even eternal life. 26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him. 

Introduction (warning about deception)

The first section of this book sorts out who the true believers and false believers are. Now we are into the second major section, and if you want to know what the main purpose of this section is take a look at verse 26. 

1 John 2:26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.

This portion of the book is all about overcoming Satan and withstanding his attacks. John began by encouraging true believers by pointing out their spiritual advantages: forgiveness of sins, knowledge of God, and strength to defeat Satan. Now he is going to begin warning us about the danger of deception.
Two of Satan’s most used strategies are seduction and deception. He tries to seduce us to fall in love with the world, and John warned us against that last week. And now he is going to warn us about being deceived. 
We face a lot of threats in this life. A lot of different bad things could happen to you, and so you have to live your life in a state of alertness. You have to watch out so that you do not get run over by a car, or get too close to someone with the flu, or lose track of your finances and get into financial trouble. There are all kinds of dangers out there, and it is impossible to be alert against every conceivable danger, so we need to focus our attention on the greatest threats. 
It seems to me there are two criteria that make something a threat – 1) a high likelihood of it happening, and 2) severe consequences if it does happen. Having a nuclear bomb land on my head has severe consequences, but it is not much of a threat because it is so unlikely. Stubbing my toe is much more likely, but it is not a great threat because it is no big deal – it does not do much damage. A real threat is something that is both likely and that would inflict serious harm.
So what is the greatest threat we face? Something that is especially disastrous when it happens, and that is very likely to happen if you do not have your guard up? You can tell from Scripture which threats are greatest by which ones we are most warned against. And the warning that comes up again and again and again on the pages of Scripture is the warning against being deceived. The thing that really threatens you is deceivers. When you read the warnings of Scripture you find that unless we are very, very vigilant there is a high probability that we will be deceived. And the consequences of being deceived about the gospel are the most dire consequences there are.

The Antichrist: Satan’s master plan of deception 

1 John 2:18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 
Difficulties
Here John speaks of the antichrist and many antichrists. He says, “You have heard that the antichrist is coming.” In their minds the arrival of that individual was connected with the last hour, and they were right.
The arrival of the antichrist does signal the end. We know that because John goes on to say that the arrival of the many antichrists demonstrates that it is the last hour. So we have some questions to answer: What had they heard about the antichrist previously? Why does his arrival signal the end? What is the relationship between the many antichrists and the one antichrist? Why did John say it was the last hour 2000 years ago?
What they had heard about antichrist
Let’s tackle that first question first. John says they have been taught already about the one, single antichrist that will someday come. What had they been taught? If you get a concordance and look up the word “antichrist” you will find that this is the very first time in Scripture where it appears. In fact, the word “antichrist” never appears anywhere in the Bible except in 1 and 2 John. And yet John says that the teaching about the antichrist was known to his readers. So evidently the other passages that speak about this man in Scripture do not use the word “antichrist.” That means if we want to find what the Bible says about him we have to do it another way besides just looking for the word antichrist. What we need to do is look in Scripture for any teaching about some end-times, deceiving, Christ-opposing figure. So let’s go back and see what we can find.

Pinning the tail on the antichrist
“There is no doubt that the Antichrist has already been born. Firmly established, already in his early years. After reaching maturity, he will achieve supreme power.” This person is certain that the antichrist has already been born and it is just a matter of time before he obtains supreme power. When I first heard that quotation I thought it might have come from Hal Lindsey or the Left Behind series or something like that. Actually, that is a quotation from Martin of Tours who died 397 AD. Martin of Tours thought he had the antichrist pegged way back in the Fourth Century. And the Church has been trying to pin the tail on the Antichrist ever since.
Some believe the antichrist was Nero. In both Greek and Hebrew each letter of the alphabet has a numeric value. If you add up the values for the name Nero it comes up 275. If you add to that the values for the title Caesar it comes out to 1005. But if you replace each Greek letter with the equivalent Aramaic letter, and you use both Nero and Caesar, you get 676. And then, if you drop the letter yod out of the word “Caesar” (rsq rather than rsyq) that gets you down to 666. And there is a Qumran document that does refer to Caesar with that particular misspelling. So with a little effort you can make Nero equal 666.
In the Latin the word “bendictus” comes out to 666, and so Luther pointed to Pope Benedict as the Antichrist. Luther’s opponents countered that one form of Luther’s name comes up 666. Using English letters one system comes up with 666 for Hitler’s name, and another comes up with 666 for Kissinger’s name. Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in each of his three names, so that comes up 666, and he lived at 666 St. Cloud Dr. in L.A. And Craig Keener points out that if you use Roman numerals, the phrase “cute purple dinosaur” comes out to 666, so you have to consider Barney in the mix. And in case you are wondering, using Hebrew letters Darrell R comes out to 665 (so I’m out).

Jesus and Daniel 
Obviously we are going to have to do more than find a connection with 666 if we want to get a handle on what the readers of 1 John had been taught about the antichrist. The readers of 1 John had been taught by the Apostles, who were the heralds of the teachings of Jesus. So let’s start by looking at what Jesus taught. Jesus’ famous sermon on the end times is known as the Olivet Discourse and it appears in Mt.24-25.

Matthew 24:3-4 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" 4 Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. 

This is very, very important. They asked a question about the timing of the end and when Jesus responded the very first words out of His mouth were, “Watch out that no one deceives you.” The main issue in Jesus’ mind when it came to eschatology was that we not be deceived. The purpose of teaching about the end times is not so we can make up a chart of the order of events. It is so we can avoid being deceived. Why is that such an issue?

5 For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.

So there will be many false christs and deceivers. And many will be deceived by them. Then Jesus goes on to describe a period of war and famine and earthquakes. But in verses 6-8 He tells us not to be alarmed about that – that is not the end. Then in verse 9 He describes a time of persecution.

10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

There is the deception again.

12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. 15 "So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel-- let the reader understand-- 16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 

So when Jesus finally got to the point of answering the question about when the end would come He brought up the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel. So let’s go back and take a look at what Daniel said.
The word “abomination” means something God hates (usually idolatry). Desolation means ruin or destruction. So something God especially hates will cause destruction.
Daniel refers to that desolation four times, and it is always the work of the same guy. The first mention is in chapter 8 where it is connected with a major rebellion against God. (Dan.8:12-13)
The second reference is in chapter 9. 

Da.9:26-27 After the sixty-two `sevens,' 

That is 62 groups of seven years, which equals 434 years – the amount of time from Daniel to the time of Jesus.

…the Anointed One (Christ) will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one `seven.' In the middle of the `seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him." 

So once again you see this figure who will come just before the end and bring about an abomination that causes desolation. And here we find that he will oppose the Christ (the anointed one). So John uses the word “antichrist” or, literally, anti-anointed one; and Daniel speaks of a ruler who will come and oppose God’s anointed one. This opposition of the Christ will be the cause of the abomination that causes desolation.
The next mention comes in chapter 11. Daniel 10-11 are amazing chapters. They stand as one of the most compelling proofs of the inspiration of Scripture, because they describe the history of the Jews during the years between the Old Testament and New Testament with perfect accuracy. These are events that happened hundreds of years after Daniel was dead and gone, and yet he describes them with undeniable precision and detail. And the details are verifiable by secular historical sources outside the Bible – multiple different sources. The descriptions are so accurate that the liberals who deny the inspiration of Scripture do not even bother trying to argue against the accuracy. They admit that the descriptions in these chapters match the history perfectly. They just say Daniel had to have been written after all these things happened. (But we know that is not true because we have found actual copies of Daniel that are earlier than the fulfillment of some of the events.)
So Daniel takes us step by step through all the significant events of the struggles the Jewish people went through during that time. And he takes us right up through the career of Antiochus Epiphanes. We read about all the details of his career, all the various military wins and losses, and all that led up to the abomination that caused desolation. That took place in December 168 B.C. What Antiochus did in December of 168 BC matches what Daniel said would take place in the abomination of desolation. He entered the sanctuary and the temple treasury and removed all the sacred vessels. He put an end to the daily sacrifices by setting up a statue of Zeus. He sacrificed a pig on the altar and made Jewish religion a capital offense.
But then, after describing the aftermath of all that, in verse 35 Daniel makes a statement about the end.

Dan.11:35 Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end… 

And from that verse on the descriptions of what take place do not match what we know from history at all.

36 He will exalt and magnify himself above every god … 37He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers … nor will he regard any god, but will exalt himself above them all.

That was not true of Antiochus. He placed in the Sanctuary not a statue of himself, but of Zeus. Daniel goes on to describe a war against Egypt, followed by a problem back in Israel which brings him back up from Egypt, and then he dies suddenly in Israel. None of that matches what happened in history. Antiochus Epiphanes died in Persia for one thing.
So throughout Daniel we have prophecies about a great ruler who will oppose God and the Messiah at the very end. Then we have this description of all the events leading up to the time of Jesus that match what we know from history to a T. Then we have a statement about the end, and from there on it does not match history at all. Then Jesus comes along and talks about the end to come, and He says it will happen when Daniel’s abomination of desolation takes place. And it will be followed by a time of terrible trouble and then the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. 

12:1-2 At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people-everyone whose name is found written in the book-will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 

So from that we understand that the prophecies about the abomination of desolation are prophecies that point to the very end of time. So what about Antiochus Epiphanes? I believe Antiochus was given by God as a near fulfillment to prove the truthfulness of the prophecy. This is a common thing that God does with prophecy. He announces something in the distant future, and then gives a partial fulfillment of it in the present time that is so clearly a fulfillment of the prophecy that no one can deny that it is a God-given prophecy, and yet not all the details are fulfilled so we know there is still an ultimate, future fulfillment. The accuracy with which the life of Antiochus matched the prophecies of Daniel is so remarkable that no rational person would deny that it would take supernatural knowledge to announce that ahead of time (even the liberals agree with that, which is why they try to date it later), but the elements that were clearly not fulfilled show us that there is yet a future fulfillment. And that is confirmed by Jesus when He connects the abomination of desolation with the end.
So all that to say that Jesus warned of two things: an Antiochus-like ruler who would come and oppose God and God’s anointed one, and many false christs who would come and deceive.
So this is what the followers of Jesus were looking for. The context of 2 Thes.2 was the people were alarmed because there were some extreme preterists in that church. A preterist is someone who teaches that what we normally think of as an end-times prophecy has already been fulfilled in the past. Sometimes the preterists are right. For example, Isaiah prophesied that in the last days a descendent of David would come and bear the sins of His people. That already happened 2000 years ago, right? So we are all preterists at some point.
But these people were extreme preterists. They were going so far as to say that the Day of the Lord (the Second coming of Christ) had already taken place.

2Th 2:1-10 Concerning the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come. 3 Do not let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 

Remember Daniel said the abomination of desolation would be connected with a major rebellion? Paul is saying, “It is impossible for the Second Coming to have already occurred because the rebellion has not yet occurred, and the man of lawlessness has not yet been revealed.

4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. 

That is all right out of Daniel. The Second Coming cannot happen until the identity of this man is revealed, and he carries out his abomination. 

5 Do not you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 

That is the same thing John said. The people had received this teaching about the antichrist from the Apostles. It was part of the proclamation of the gospel in the early church.

6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. 8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. 9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. 

Once again, the issue is deception. And one of the main tools this person will use to deceive will be all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs, and wonders.
In Revelation 13 there is a beast that rises up from the land. In verse 11 he looks kind of like a lamb, but he speaks like a dragon. He looks like he might be Christ, but out of his mouth comes the speech of Satan. And he does exactly the same thing as the man of lawlessness in 2 Thes.2 – he uses miracles to deceive people.

Revelation 13:13-14 And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. 14 Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. 

70 AD?
Now some of our preterist friends would say, “Isn’t all this talking about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD?” I believe that what happened in 70 AD was just like what happened with Antiochus Ephiphanes. It was another near fulfillment that proved that God was the author of the prophecies. There is no question that there is a great deal of similarity between what Jesus prophesied about the end and what happened in 70 AD. And there are a great number of points where you can see the descriptions in Revelation as lining up with first century Rome. And so just as Antiochus was a partial, near fulfillment of the prophecy of the antichrist, so Nero and Titus and first century Rome were partial, near fulfillments of the prophecies of the events that will take place at the very end just before the resurrection.
However, not everything that is prophesied about the end was fulfilled in 70 AD. For one thing, there is there no clear abomination that matches the descriptions in Daniel. And if you say, “Well, maybe it was the destruction of the Temple,” that does not work because Jesus said the abomination is the signal for the people to flee. The destruction of the Temple in 70 AD would not be a very helpful warning for when to flee because all of the slaughter had already taken place prior to the destruction of the Temple. Also, Jesus said all the nations would be gathered against Jerusalem. That did not happen in 70 AD – it was only Rome. And Jesus said it would be a time of great distress unequaled from the beginning of the world and never to be equaled again. 70 AD falls short of that as well. Not to mention all the signs in the sky that Jesus said would take place.
So John states that they had heard about a person who would be connected with the last hour, and who would oppose God’s anointed one. Daniel announced a figure just like that, Jesus confirmed it, Paul spoke about an end-times figure just like that, and he is mentioned in Revelation. So it should not be any mystery why the Church throughout the centuries has interpreted John’s words here about the “antichrist” as referring to this same individual.
It is all headed toward a big deception
So what does all that have to do with your life? It shows us that the main issue in the last days is this: Will you be able to remain faithful through the suffering, and will you be deceived? Satan is not just flailing around aimlessly. He is going somewhere. He is working up toward his big, final push. Jesus spoke of a great apostasy that will take place at the end due to the persecution and the mass deception that will take place.

Matthew 24:9-14 "Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Matthew 24:24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible.

(That last phrase should be translated the same way it is translated in Ro.12:18: “as much as possible.” Obviously it is possible or Jesus would not warn us about it. The phrase means, “To the degree that it is possible they will deceive even the elect.”) If anyone thinks the elect are immune to being deceived, and you do not have to worry about that, you need to re-read your New Testament. We are constantly warned about deception – especially in the end times.

Deception through miracles
A lot of the deception will happen because of miracles. We saw that in 2 Thes.2 and in Rev.13. This is an important thing for us to understand because there are a lot of people claiming to perform miracles today. Many people in the church have fallen in love with miracles, so much so that they think it glorifies God more when He does something through miracles than when He does the same thing through providence. They think it is a greater display of God’s power when He heals someone miraculously than when He heals them the normal way – through medicine and the natural healing process. Some people seem to think that is the only time God is really at work – when He is doing a miracle. That is really sad. Those people miss 99% of the majesty and glory of God. There are people today teaching that you should be watching for a miracle in your life every day. So when someone comes along who can do astonishing things - they can tell you information about your life that would have been impossible for them to know outside of some supernatural source, people fall all over themselves to listen to people like that and they swallow everything they say whether it matches Scripture or not. People who are in love with miracles are going to be easy pickings for the antichrist when he comes.

Dt.13:1-3 If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer.

There are false prophets who can do miracles. Why does God allow them to do these things that will succeed in leading so many astray?

… The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 
Deception through affection (enticement) 
In the last days many will be deceived. It is among the greatest dangers out there. It is likely that it will happen to you, and the consequences are severe. It is hard to think of any threat you face in life that is more serious. And the key to keeping yourself safe from this horrible danger is … not what you might have expected. Most of us would say, “The way to avoid deception is education!” We need Bible teaching and training and we need to teach our kids sound doctrine and make sure they know the truth. And we need to teach apologetics, so they can defend the truth against attack.
All that is certainly true. Huge numbers of people are deceived and led astray because of lack of good teaching. They just do not know the Word. The teaching in so many churches has been so shallow for so long that people fall prey to deceptive arguments every day. There are people who have been in evangelical churches all their lives, who run into a persuasive false teacher and they are led astray in half an hour. The biblical illiteracy in the Church in the United States is absolutely appalling. If a popular author writes an intriguing book it immediately becomes a best-seller in the Christian bookstores even if it is filled with heresy. Phillip Yancy or John Eldridge can write a book that denies the omniscience of God and Christians buy copies by the millions and use it for Bible study groups and Sunday school classes and pastors preach from it. The ignorance of sound doctrine in the Church today is a scandal for which I believe a lot of pastors and Sunday school teachers are going to have to give an account on Judgment Day.
So is education important for discernment? Absolutely! However, by itself it is not enough. If all there is to guarding ourselves against deception is learning the truth, how do we explain why so many educated people are deceived? There are men who were brilliant seminary professors who taught the truth to students for years, and then became deceived and went astray - In many cases so far astray that they left Christianity altogether. So there is more to discernment than just education. Knowledge of God’s Word is crucial – no question about that. But there is another critical factor.
And John showed us what that was last week. It is the same thing we just read in Deuteronomy. The question of whether or not you will be deceived has mostly to do with how much you love God. It is no accident that the section leading in to the warning about deception is a section that exhorts us not to love the world. You see, what you believe is first and foremost a function of what you want to believe. And what you want to believe is determined by what you love. The main reason why people are deceived is because love for the world takes root in their heart, and it generates powerful desires for the world, and those desires are so strong that it has an effect on the way their brain processes information and they can be deceived.
If you think you will be able to avoid deception just because of your intellect, think again. When your heart is enticed by something in the world and you allow yourself to love that thing, that love will have a powerful effect on how you interpret data and how information is processed in your brain. And so you can study and study and study and learn and learn and all that information will pass through the grid of what your heart loves so that it will be interpreted in such a way as to allow for that love. Information that does not fit will somehow be forgotten. 
The greatest threat to your wellbeing is deception, and deception is very likely because of how prone we are to love the world. So the starting point of guarding yourself against being deceived is last week’s study – do not love the world or anything in the world. The most important thing you can possibly do is to do whatever it takes to increase your love for God. The entire Christian life can be summed up as an effort to increase your esteem for God and your desire for and delight in His presence. If what you are doing is not accomplishing that, then do something else, because it is only when you desire and delight in His presence more than the pleasures of this world that you will be able to not love this world.

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

The most important way to protect yourself from deception is not by figuring out who the antichrist is. It is by learning the truth and guarding your heart so you do not love the world.

The last hour – Crunch time

There is one more thing we need to consider in verse 18. Are you one of those people who has an interest in the end times? If so, that is good because you are living in them!

1 John 2:18 Dear children, this is the last hour

The main point of verse 18 is that this is the last hour, as demonstrated by the presence of the antichrists.
Meaning of last hour – fulfillment of God’s purposes in redemptive history
Sometimes references to the end or the last day refer to Judgment Day or the Second Coming. 

1 Peter 1:5 (you) who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

There it is a future reality. Many times, however, the last days or the end refers to the entire Church Age.

Acts 2:16 This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

What happened on the day of Pentecost took place in the last days.

Hebrews 1:1-2 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son

Hebrews 9:26 he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.

1 Peter 1:20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

The liberals read passages like that and say, “They just had it wrong.” I read more than one commentary this week that said, “John was just mistaken when he said it was the last hour.” They say the Apostles expected Jesus to come back in their lifetime, and it turned out they were in error.
We reject that first of all because we believe all Scripture is God-breathed and is therefore without error of any kind because it is impossible for God to breath out an error. But beyond that, even the liberals should know better than to say those things because their theory is contradicted by what the Apostles wrote elsewhere.

Ephesians 2:6-7 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace

If Paul had been convinced the Second Coming was going to take place during his lifetime why would he talk about the coming ages?
In Jn.21 Jesus told Peter that he would die before the Second Coming. And Peter understood that.

2 Peter 1:15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things.

So the Apostles knew very well that the Second Coming could be a long way off. Yet they still spoke of their time as being the last days. Why?
The reason this is confusing for us is because our idea of “end” is a little different from the Greek idea. We tend to think of the significance of the “end” as being “the stopping point.” We get that from our godless culture that thinks the main significance of human existence is simply the fact that it is ongoing. So for them the end is nothing but the stopping point. That is why for the world the statement, “The end is near” is a statement of hopelessness and doomsday gloom. The reason it sounds strange to our ears to think of the whole church age as the end times or last hour is because how can you have a 2000+ year long stopping point? It does not seem to make sense for John to say it is the stopping point when there are still thousands of years left before the Second Coming.
But the main significance of the word “end” in Scripture is not “stopping point” but rather “purpose” or “goal.” The end of the world is the time when the purpose for the world is realized. The Biblical perspective is to think of history as purposeful and leading toward a goal. So for us “the end is near” (or better yet, “the end has arrived”) is one of the most hopeful and upbeat things you can possibly say. The Church age is the end of human history in the sense that it was all leading up to this, and this is the fulfillment of God’s purposes in ages past. Obviously this age is not the final, complete fulfillment. It is the first stage of the end. It is very much the goal that everything that preceded was shooting toward.

1 Corinthians 10:11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.

This is the end in the sense that it is the time of the fulfillment of the ages. This is such a wonderful time to live. In the whole scope of redemptive history and all of human history this period is crunch time. And crunch time is when the forces of evil gather up all their resources and focus their attack on God’s anointed one – the Christ. The time when Satan does that is the time when all the important things come to a head. All of human history wraps up with a great, massive conflict between the Christ of God and the antichrist who opposes Him. That is how it all ends, and we are right smack dab in the middle of that battle right now. Many antichrists have already come. This world is in a war against the anointed One of God, and it really is all-out war. And if we do not take seriously the warnings about deception we will become casualties. 
The first way to avoid that, John shows us through the context, is to watch out what you love. Tear yourself free from love for this world, and love the Lord your God with all your being instead. Then, in the verses that follow, John has some more instruction for us in how to engage in this war, and that we will look at next time.

Benediction: 1 Thessalonians 5:2-6 you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. … 4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. 5 You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled. 

Overcoming Evil Part 4 The Anointing 2:19-21

Summary: John is calling us to remain in the gospel and remain in the Lord by avoiding deception. The antichrists went out from the Apostles but were not really from them. Their departure from the gospel showed they were not part of the Apostolic band. But the readers have an anointing (empowering from the Holy Spirit belonging to all believers at all times). It teaches us knowledge. If we use the means He has given it will never be impossible for us to know Him. We do not need any teachers who are outside the realm of the anointing (but we do need teachers who are tools of the anointing). 

Introduction (Remain!)
Little children
Those who failed to remain (departed from the Apostles’ doctrine) v.19
Problems with the church split view
Solution: “Us” = the Apostles
Opposing apostolic doctrine = self-excommunicaiton
The divine purpose of their departure
Your ability to remain: The Anointing v.20
The anointing
Common (mis)understandings
Biblical background
John’s Usage – the anointing teaches knowledge
So why use the term anointing?
All Christians have the anointing all the time
The word and Spirit
How the Spirit teaches you – applies the Word
No superstition
V.21 You know the truth
No need for teachers v.27
The comfort that comes from this

1 John 2:18-27 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 
19 They went out from us, but they were not from us. For if they had been from us, they would have remained with us; but [their going out was] in order to be shown that none of them were from us. 
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know. 
21 I do not write to you that you do not know the truth, but that you do know it and that no lie comes from the truth. 

22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
 24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us--even eternal life. 26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is true, not a lie--just as it has taught you, remain in him. 28 And now, dear children, remain in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. 

Introduction (Remain!)
Most people have heard of Billy Graham.
Not as many realize that Billy Graham didn’t always preach alone – he used to have a partner.
They were known as “Billy and Chuck,” and they toured together filling stadiums with crowds of up to 30,000.
Charles Templeton was the more eloquent of the two, and many expected that he would become the central figure and Graham would be second.
In 1984 Dr. Torrey Johnson of Youth for Christ said, “Charles Templeton was the most versatile of all of our preachers.”
Even critics admired him. 
One liberal commentator said, “I had heard great … orators … speak. But they were nothing compared to Templeton. Templeton went for your heart, plucked it out, recharged it and gave you new life and new hope where none had existed before.”

But he began to entertain doubts, and one day Templeton records this conversation he had with Billy Graham:
"Billy, it's not possible any longer to believe the biblical account of creation. The world wasn't created; it has evolved over millions of years. It's not a matter of speculation, it's demonstrable fact." 
Graham said, "I don't accept that, and there are reputable scholars who don't." 
"Who are they?" I said. "Men in conservative Christian colleges?" 
"Most of them, yes. But that's not the point. I believe in the Genesis account of creation simply because it's in the Bible. I've discovered something in my ministry: when I take the Bible literally, when I proclaim it as God's Word, I have power. When I stand before the people and say, 'God says,' or 'The Bible says, 'the Holy Spirit uses me. There are results. People respond. Wiser men than you or I have been arguing questions like this for centuries. I don't have the time or the intellect to examine all sides of each theological dispute, so I've decided, once and for all, to stop questioning and to accept the Bible as God's Word." 
"But Billy," I protested, "you can't do that. … Do it and you begin to die. It's intellectual suicide." 
"I don't know about anybody else, "he said, "but I've decided that that's the path for me." 
At that point the two men parted ways. 
Templeton went to Princeton and replaced Jesus Christ with academic pursuit as his god.
And human wisdom took the place of Scripture as his guide.
Not many months later, Billy Graham began the campaign that would catapult him overnight into international prominence. 
He did proclaim the gospel as God’s Word, and God did work powerfully through that, and many, many souls will be in heaven for eternity as a result.
Sadly Templeton became an agnostic and then an atheist and died of Alzheimer’s on June 7th, 2001, age 85.
The god of intellect ultimately failed him.

Anyone can become deceived. 
And the Apostle John is urgent in calling us to stand firm against the enticements of deception. 
The word remain appears 11 times in this chapter.
And most of those are right here in this section.
It’s not hard to figure out what the main thrust of this passage is.
Verse 19 – the antichrists failed to remain.
Verse 24 – See to it that the gospel remains in you. If it does you will also remain in God (which is eternal life)
Verse 27 – The anointing remains in you…so remain in Him.
Verse 28 – And now, dear children, remain in Him.
It’s all about remaining – having the anointing and the truth remain in you and you remaining in the truth and in God.
If all that happens you have eternal life; if it doesn’t, you don’t.
The antichrists failed to remain, and they are doing all they can to keep you from remaining.
And so John writes to encourage us to remain.
Those who failed to remain (departed from the Apostles’ doctrine) v.19

John begins by talking to us about those who didn’t remain.

18-27 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not from us.

Your translation might say something like “They went out from us but they did not really belong to us.”
The literal translation is just this – They went out from us, but they were not from us.
So it’s like he’s saying, “They went out from us but not really.”
The word “from” is the Greek word ek.
And that word ek can refer to separation or it can refer to origin or belonging to a group.
They went out ek us (separated themselves from us)…
, but they were not really from us in the sense of belonging to us or being commissioned by us.
Problems with the church split view
The traditional understanding of this verse is that the antichrists had a falling out with the rest of the fellowship and they left that local church.
That’s the view I’ve always been taught, and it’s the view in every commentary I read.
And it’s the view that I myself taught just a couple weeks ago.
(Remember when I told you that there had been a big church split and John was addressing that in this letter)?
But this week as I’ve studied this further I’ve realized that there are some serious problems with that interpretation.

If John was just talking about a church split, why would he say that it was their leaving that showed that they never really belonged?
These people are antichrist’s teaching heresy about Jesus Christ and a false gospel…
, and yet we don’t realize that they do not belong with us until they physically leave the fellowship?
If they are antichrists teaching heresy about Jesus Christ that’s all the proof you need that they don’t belong to the true Church.
Their decision to leave the local fellowship isn’t needed to figure that out.

Secondly, why would they have even had the opportunity to leave?
If they were antichrists you would think they would have been booted out of the church a long time ago.
If a bunch of antichrists were permitted to remain in the church as long as they wanted…
, and finally only left because they wanted to leave, you would expect the Apostle to rebuke the church for that.
Jesus certainly did.
In the letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3 any church that tolerated false teaching was soundly rebuked by Jesus.

Third, this passage has been used by many to support the idea no true believer has to concern himself with the threat of ever falling away…
, because it says that if they had truly been from us they never would have left.
Therefore it’s guaranteed that all Christians will remain and none will ever leave.
But if that were the case, what would be the point of this entire section?
The whole section is warning the readers not to be deceived and to remain in the faith!
If it’s a theological impossibility for them to be deceived and leave, why would the warning be needed?

And fourth, why does John switch from the first person to the second person in verse 20?
19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.
If “us” means the saved community, why doesn’t he stick with that in v.20 and say, “But we have an anointing from the Holy One…”?
Solution: “Us” = the Apostles
There is actually a very simple solution that solves all these difficulties.
I was able to find one other place in Scripture where this exact same phrase “went out from us” is used.
It’s in Acts 15 where there was a major controversy in the Church and the Apostles and other leaders gathered together in Jerusalem to give their authoritative ruling on the matter.
And when they did so they wrote a letter, and here’s how that letter started:
Acts 15:23 The apostles and elders, your brothers, To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia: Greetings. 24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said.
They went out though they belonged to us and represented us.
They pretended to be among the Apostles and Elders, but they never were.
I’m convinced that the phrase here in 1 John is used in a very similar way.
The “us” of v.19 is the Apostles and their associates – the true, authoritative teachers and guardians of the Gospel.
That’s what it meant in the first 5 verses of ch.1. 
1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. …5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you
There it’s clear that “us” means the Apostles and “you” means the believing community of John’s readers.
And if we read this present passage the same way all of the problems I mentioned disappear. 
Opposing apostolic doctrine = self-excommunicaiton
19 They went out from us (the Apostles – they departed from the Apostles’ doctrine)…
, but they did not really belong to us. 
They never were among the ones commissioned by Christ to be the authoritative teachers of the true faith.
For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. 
So the point is not that no Christian ever leaves the church.
The point is that any teacher who departs from the Apostles’ doctrine proves himself to be a phony…
, because no true Apostle would ever contradict the established Gospel once for all delivered to the saints through the Apostles. 
John is making a case that these false teachers are not authoritative representatives and teachers of the true Gospel…
, but then they started to distance themselves from the Apostles with their new teachings about Jesus.

That kind of thing was a real problem in the early church.
Paul ran into it too.
In 2 Cor.11&12 he talks about these men who the Corinthians regarded as “super-Apostles” (11:5, 12:11).
And they were antichrists.
Paul says that they were preaching a Jesus other than the Jesus the Apostles preached, and a different gospel from the one they accepted. (11:4)
And so Paul has to go to great lengths to expose them as frauds and to demonstrate that he is a true Apostle. 

I’m convinced that’s exactly what John is doing in this text.
He’s saying, “Those people have come to you pretending to be among the Apostles and Elders, but they are not part of us and never have been.
And the fact that they are doctrinal innovators proves that.”
Any teacher who departs from the teaching of the Apostles in the New Testament is an antichrist.
You just don’t oppose the Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you do you instantly prove yourself to be a phony, because the Apostles were established by God, through the miracles, to be His spokesman.
And so their teaching is the very Word of God.
The gospel was once for all delivered to the saints through the Apostles and it does not change…
; not one jot or tittle not the slightest mark of the pen will ever pass away from the Law of the Lord Jesus Christ…
; even if heaven and earth pass away His Words will never pass away…
; He is the same yesterday, today, and forever and His Word stands firm in the heavens forever.
And so anyone who departs from that Word exposes himself as a fraud, excommunicates himself, and proves he is no authority at all.
The divine purpose of their departure
And their departure from the Apostles’ doctrine had a divine purpose.
19 …[Their going out happened] in order to be shown that none of them were from us. 
The phrase “in order to” points to an intentional purpose.
God had a purpose He was working out in their leaving.
God wanted it to be clear that they were not among the Apostles, and so He allowed them to go on with their doctrinal innovation.

So the ones who failed to remain faithful to the true Gospel prove themselves to be antichrists.
There’s the negative reality about remaining.
Now in v.20 John gives us the positive side.
Your ability to remain: The Anointing v.20
20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know [the truth]. 
The anointing
Common (mis)understandings 
So what is this anointing that we have?
That is a term you hear very frequently in Charismatic circles and rarely ever anywhere else in the church – even though it is obviously a biblical term.
If you listen to the way the term is used on TV it’s very difficult to pin down what they mean by it.
Sometimes they are under it, sometimes they feel it come over them or feel it in the room.
It is often described in terms of a sensation of heat or electricity going through your body.
Benny Hinn claims to be able to blow the anointing at people across the room.
There isn’t much consistency in the way the term is used, except in that it usually conceived in terms of something that comes and goes.
Some Christians have it, others don’t.
And the ones who do just get it from time to time.
Biblical background
The word “anoint” literally means to put oil or some other kind of ointment on someone.
In OT times it was done at the ordination of priests or kings.
For priests it was a symbol that pointed to them as being set apart as holy to the Lord for His special purposes.
For the kings the emphasis was on them being chosen and commissioned.
And along with that commissioning came enablement and empowerment through the Holy Spirit.
1 Samuel 16:13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed (David) in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David in power. 
The connection between anointing and the Holy Spirit is something you see again and again.
The symbol of oil often represents the Holy Spirit in Scripture and the act of anointing is also very often connected with receiving the Holy Spirit.

Most of the references to anointing in the NT refer to Jesus.
He is the anointed of God – the chosen One. 
And here again you see the connection with the Holy Spirit.
Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach…
Acts 10:38 God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

So when the Charismatics say that the anointing is a special enablement from the Holy Spirit…
; when they say it is a supernatural event in which the Spirit of God fills you with mighty power for His service…
– they are right on the money!
That is exactly what it is.

To be anointed means 
to have special favor from God, 
to be chosen and commissioned by Him, and 
to receive enabling, empowering grace from the Holy Spirit. 
John’s Usage – the anointing teaches knowledge
So let’s plug that background into the context of 1 John 2 and see if we can figure out what John is saying.
It’s clear from the context that the main idea that John has with the anointing is the ability to understand and discern.
1 John 2:20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know [the truth]
(The words “the truth” aren’t in the Greek – literally it just says, “all of you know.”
Some translations say “You know all things,” but that is based on inferior manuscript evidence.
The correct reading is most likely “all of you know.”)

So he talks about the doctrinal departure of the antichrists from the gospel…
, and then he says, “You, however, have an anointing so you all have knowledge.”
Now skip down to v.27.
1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things… 
There the anointing is something that makes it so you have knowledge and don’t need anyone to teach you.
So it’s real clear that John’s use of the imagery of anointing has to do with knowledge, understanding, and insight into truth.
It is a divine enablement for discerning and understanding truth. 
So why use the term anointing? Dependence on God
So now the question is this: If John wants to talk about our knowledge and understanding and insight, why does he use the word anointing?
The reason is this: It’s not just that you have knowledge and insight.
You have knowledge and insight that comes from the enabling, empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in your heart.

This is very important to understand.
You have insight, but that insight is not just an intellectual gift God placed in your brain.
It is the result of the ongoing, daily activities of the Holy Spirit.

Do you see the difference between those two things?
If God wanted you to do well in a math class He could do it in two ways.
He could do it by giving you a brain that can easily learn math on its own.
Or He could sit next to you and show you have to work each problem.

If he did it the first way, then if He got up and walked away you could still work the equations.
But the second way makes you completely dependent on His immediate presence.
I think the reason John uses the figure of anointing is to point us more toward that second idea.
John wants to tell us about a knowledge and insight that we have…
, but if he just used the words “knowledge and insight” we might think it is a faculty or ability that He built in to us.
And he wants to emphasize the fact that it is an insight that comes from the direct ministry of the Holy Spirit moment by moment.
The Holy One (that’s Jesus Christ) has given us the Holy Spirit who has an ongoing ministry of teaching us and enlightening us.

That’s important to understand, because it is possible to have the anointing and to still be deceived.
Whether or not you are deceived or have clear understanding depends upon your interactions with the Holy Spirit at any given moment. 
All Christians have the anointing all the time
That’s not to say the anointing comes and goes.
One thing that is not correct in the popular conception of the anointing is the idea that it is a sporadic, occasional thing that only some Christians have only some of the time.
John says, categorically to all true believers across the board that they have the anointing.
He says “all of you know the truth.”
That comes right out of the New Covenant promise.
Jeremiah 31:33-34 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

So the anointing is something you received at your conversion and it doesn’t come and go.
Every Christian always has it all the time.
That’s not to suggest that all Christians always have full insight and knowledge.
The anointing is not insight and knowledge.
The anointing teaches you insight and knowledge.
You don’t automatically have insight and knowledge and discernment just because you have the anointing.
It all depends on how well you learn from the anointing – how well you listen to the Holy Spirit.
All Christian have the anointing at all times.
But not all Christians are listening to the anointing to the same degree.
The word and Spirit
There are two things that John says remain in us.
First he says the Word remains in us (back in v.14).
Then in v.27 he says the anointing remains in us.
So you can see there is a connection between the Word and the Spirit (just as we see throughout Scripture). 
The Word was inspired by the Spirit, it is the sword of the Spirit, and the Spirit constantly works to teach it to us.
John 14:26 The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things 
John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.
How the Spirit teaches you – applies the Word
So why does John use the word “remain”?
What does it mean for the Word and the anointing to remain in you?
It means you are continually experiencing them on an ongoing basis.
The Word remaining in you is not like information just sitting there in your head.
It is an ongoing activity in which the indwelling Holy Spirit is continually ministering His Word to you.
The people in Thessalonica were great examples of that.
1 Thessalonians 1:5-6 our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. … 6 You welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 2:13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.
Receiving the Word of God as the Word of God is much different from the way you receive the word of man.
When you receive the word of men you consider it, evaluate it, accept what you like, and reject what doesn’t seem right to you.
But receiving something as the Word of God is much different.
You don’t evaluate it or sit in judgment upon it.
You submit to it and honor it and embrace it and love it.
And if you don’t understand it you take that as a problem with your heart not as a problem with the Word.

And when you receive it that way it is at work inside you through faith.
In other words, work is when you apply energy to accomplish something.
That’s what the Holy Spirit does in the heart of a believer with the Word of God.
He applies energy in order to accomplish things in your heart, using Scripture as His tool.
The Spirit enables you to understand things, 
He opens your eyes to see the significance of them, 
He softens your heart to be able to accept them, 
He alerts you to the relevance of how it should be applied in your circumstance, 
He enables you to make connections in your mind between a new truth He shows you and the rest of your belief system so you know where it fits and you can place it in your belief system and remember it,
He inclines your affections to be delighted by them.
No superstition 
So how does it work exactly?
That’s an important question for us to ask because there is a great deal of error and confusion and bad teaching in the Church over this matter of what it means to listen to God.
It’s crucial that we understand two things:
God’s guidance is very personal and individual, and 
God reveals Himself only through His Word properly interpreted.
Most people focus on one of those while ignoring the other.
Some focus on the immediate, direct, personal aspect but they fall into superstitious mysticism. 
They listen for the voice of God in other places besides His Word.

Others focus on listening to God only through His Word…
, but many of those people fail to understand that personal, individual manner in which God speaks to each of us.
They think spoke in the past and no longer speaks today.
They imagine that God’s communication is exactly the same for everyone – He just handed mankind a book and left it at that.
But Scripture is very clear that God speaks to some and not to others.
And His guidance is individual and personal and tailored to our specific needs.
Isaiah 30:21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left you will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
Psalm 25:14 The LORD confides in those who fear him

The superstitious mystics listen for God’s voice in their own thoughts.
Or they try to find messages from God hidden in circumstances or coincidences.
Or they turn the Bible into a book of magic… 
– randomly opening to a verse and then ripping a phrase of that verse out of context to apply to their situation.
God does not speak to us in any of those ways.
Certainly not through the misuse of His holy Word.

The way God speaks to us is through enlightenment - when God opens your eyes to see some specific truth.
Eph.1:18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, 
Isa.42:16 I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them
The way God speaks to you is by turning on the lights so you can clearly see the truth.
He speaks to you through through Scripture not by bringing to your mind some interpretation other than what was intended by the original author…
, but by turning on the lights so you can clearly see the correct interpretation of the passage.
When you have a tough decision (or an easy decision for that matter)…
, He guides you through life not by giving you hidden messages through coincidences or floating random thoughts through your brain…
, but by turning on the lights so you can clearly see which option is the wisest course.

If you wonder what it’s like to hear the voice of God – any time a passage of Scripture is clear to you…
, or it is clear to you how it should be applied in your life…
, or any time it is clear what decision would be the wisest one…
, then you know what it’s like to have God speak to you and personally guide you by the hand.

So how do you listen to the anointing? 
You study the Word of God using proper hermeneutics and the correct method of interpretation…
, and you plead with God in earnest prayer to open your eyes to see what it means and what the implications are.

And when He does, then you know He has spoken to you.
In the superstitious method it’s impossible to know if the thought that floated through your mind was the voice of God or your own brain.
But in this method it’s easy to discern the voice of God, because He speaks only through enlightenment.
It’s not hard to know if the lights are on.
If you can see – that means they’re on!
If you can’t see, they’re off.
If you understand what Scripture means and what the implications are for your life, God is speaking to you.
If you can clearly see the wise course to take, you are hearing the voice of the Spirit.
V.21 You know the truth
And God speaks to all Christians, which means we all know the truth.
21 I do not write to you that you do not know the truth, but that you do know it and that no lie comes from the truth. 
John says, “I’m writing you to remind you that you do know the truth.
It’s not a situation where you’re ignorant, and I’m privy to some special, secret knowledge.”

That’s no doubt what the false teachers were saying.
And John wants to make it clear that what he is saying is much different.
It’s not that the common people are ignorant, and in need of some spiritual guru to enlighten them with some secret knowledge…
, and the false teachers are saying “We have it” and the Apostles are saying, “No, we have it.”
It’s not like that.
John is saying, “You all have the truth already.”
If you are genuinely a Christian, then you have the truth of the Gospel.
And the fact that you have accepted it means you not only know the correct information, but you also have enlightenment, understanding, and insight.
And you don’t need anything in addition to that.
Again – this is a promise of the New Covenant.
Jeremiah 31:34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD.
Every Christian knows God.
Some of us have less intellectual capacity than others…
, some are brilliant, others of us might be flat out morons…
- but every last one of us, from the least of us to the greatest, can understand and discern the gospel sufficiently so we can know God.
No need for teachers v.27
John makes the point even stronger down in v.27.
26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is true and not a lie--just as it has taught you, remain in him. 
What does it mean that we don’t need anyone to teach us?
If we take that in an absolute sense then it would be nonsense. 
If we don’t ever need any teacher of any kind, why do we need John to teach us that?
If he really believes we don’t need anyone to teach us anything why would he teach us that we don’t need anyone to teach us?
This whole book is John teaching us.
So obviously he isn’t saying there is no need for the very thing he is doing!
Teachers are a gift from God to His Church (1 Cor.12:28, Eph.4:11, 2 Tim.1:11)
Romans 10:14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
Teachers are preachers are the means by which God brings about faith in your heart.

So what is John saying?
What he’s saying is that you don’t need anything other than the anointing, which is the ministry of the Holy Spirit inside you teaching you God’s Word.
If a person (such as John, or anyone else) is a tool of the anointing, fine.
That’s a good thing, and very necessary. 
But you don’t need anything that falls outside the parameters of the teaching that comes from the anointing.
Anything that helps you understand and accept and love and apply the Word of God is a ministry of the anointing.
But when someone comes along with something new – something different from the Word of God, you don’t need that.
The comfort that comes from this
And the fact that we have an anointing rather than just the Bible by itself is a wonderfully encouraging truth.
A lot of Christians act as though all they have is the Bible with no anointing.
And they think, “I don’t have seminary education, and so I’ll never be able to know for sure if I’m interpreting it the right way.”
That might be true if all God gave you was a copy of the Bible.
But He has also given you His Spirit to teach you.
Studying and learning is hard work.
But if you utilize the tools He makes available to you, and you seek the truth with all your heart, you will be able to know the truth.
The autonomy of the individual conscience
Never, ever accept any doctrine that contradicts what you see in Scripture. 
Don’t ever say, “I can’t see it in Scripture, but I’ll just trust this teacher I’m listening to because he knows more than me.”
Don’t ever do that.
Should you trust Bible teachers? Of course.
You trust a teacher at whatever level he is trustworthy.
None of you has the time or resources it would take to double check every detail of every sermon.
So I’m not saying you never trust a Bible teacher.

What I am saying, though, is don’t ever trust me or anyone else so much that you accept an interpretation that is contrary to what you see in God’s Word.
If you can’t see it in there, don’t accept it.
You should give a great amount of weight to the judgment of spiritual authorities…
, but it would actually be sin for you to go against what you think you see in Scripture or in your own heart just because of an authority's judgment. 
Here’s how Luther put it:
"Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason-for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves-I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one's conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me. Amen."

Now, that’s not to say you will always be right about everything.
Many times you and I will be deceived, mistaken, confused, and in error. 
We often fail to properly listen to what the Holy Spirit is teaching…
, which is why none of us has perfect theology.
So always remember that when some spiritual authority is teaching something other than what you believe one some point, you might be wrong and they might be right.
And if you suspect that is the case then study as hard as you can to try to see it in Scripture.
But until you can see it in Scripture, don’t change your view.

That’s why I urge you to bring your Bibles to church and have them open to the text I’m preaching from…
- so you can see these things from Scripture.
If you believe the things I tell you just because I told you, then all Satan has to do to totally overturn your whole faith is shake your confidence in me.
Which wouldn’t be too hard to do.
All it would take is some big failure on my part.
It’s a sad thing when a pastor falls into sin and everyone in the church starts questioning everything that pastor taught them over the years.
If they would have had their Bibles open all those years while he was preaching they wouldn’t have to do that.
Because their confidence would be in God’s Word, not in a man.
If your confidence is in me, all Satan has to do to upset your faith is shake your confidence in me.
But if your confidence is in the Word of God Satan can’t do anything to upset your faith, because nothing can happen to the Word of God.
Conclusion
In the Q&A last week the question came up – “How can we protect ourselves from being deceived?”
And the answer is every last one of you who is truly born again has an anointing…
, which means you have the Holy Spirit enabling you to find the truth if you seek after it with all your heart.
None of that will do you any good if you allow your heart to fall in love with the world…
 – so if you weren’t here two weeks ago make sure you get that sermon about not loving the world…
- but if you are guarding your heart against that then you can be assured that the Lord will guide you into all truth.

Benediction: 2 Tim 3:14-17 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Overcoming Evil Part 5 The Ultimate Decision 2:22-23

Summary: The ultimate liar is the one who denies the truth about Christ which makes Christ (the hypostatic union and everything else Jesus claimed about Himself) the ultimate truth. The vast, organized anti-christ movement shows that this is the culmination of the ages – the beginning of Armageddon. There are only two sides, which means we must each make the ultimate decision: confess Christ or deny Him. 

Introduction
The ultimate lie
Liar par excellence
The ultimate truth
That makes Jesus the ultimate standard of truth
The truth about Jesus
Wrongly dividing the Word – separating the 2 natures
The hypostatic union
Ultimate truth
The ultimate conflict - Armageddon
Battle lines
They are anti-you
Opposition of God’s anointed - Understand the Armageddon battle lines
The blaspheme of faint praise
The ultimate decision
Denial of the truth is denial of the person
Unity with the Father
Confessing Christ
Having God

1 John 2:22-23 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist--he denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. 

Introduction 
The following is from an ABC News article from their website. The article began this way: “In the beginning, God created heaven and Earth, and he saw that it was good. So begins the Book of Genesis, the dramatic opener of the Old Testament. But things went downhill from there. God's wrath seems at work these days, as the heavens and Earth have unleashed earthquakes in China, a cyclone in Burma, killer tornadoes and record floods across the U.S. and even a plague of locusts (cicadas) in New England. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa today, floodwaters forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 100 city blocks were underwater. ‘We're just kind of at God's mercy right now, so hopefully people that never prayed before this, it might be a good time to start,’ Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said this week as record floods hit the Midwest. …
By the final Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the Earth suffers ‘Seven Plagues’ -- from disease to ‘intense heat’ and drought, then finally a shower of deadly hailstones. And then comes the Apocalypse, the final judgment of man and destruction of the world by fire. (Actually, the word “apocalypse” means “revelation”) Most theologians and scientists do not take seriously warnings that the end of the world is nigh. But many reputable scholars do lend some credence to the notion that the world is in for some kind of disaster, be it meteorological, ecological or geopolitical. [And at this point there is an advertisement in the article: ABC News will air a dramatic two-hour broadcast in September, Earth 2100, bringing the greatest minds across the globe together to tell us what we must do to survive the next century. And what may happen if we do not.] Though tsunamis, hurricanes and heat waves may not be punishment from God, history teaches that events in the physical world trigger upheaval in society. Civilizations have risen and fallen over drought, famine and water wars. ‘Only wild-eyed fundamentalists would think that recent weather phenomena have any theological significance,’ said John P. Meier, a New Testament scholar and professor at Notre Dame in Indiana.”
So after getting a big giggle out of the idea that the wrath of God has anything to do with reality, then the article gets serious and suggests that human factors really do matter. Are there real dangers facing us? Yes! Meteorological ones, ecological ones, and geopolitical ones. But theological ones? Only if you’re a wild-eyed, fundamentalist nut case.
Such is the perspective of ABC News and John Meier – the NT scholar from Indiana. If NT scholar John Meier actually believed what is written in the NT, he might have pointed out to ABC News that nothing in the New Testament tells us to watch for certain weather patterns as the sign of the end. If you want to know what the signs are that signal the last days, instead of listening to NT scholar John Meier, why not just read NT writer John the Apostle? 

18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour.

It is antichrists, not tornados that signal the end of the age. If the ABC News reporter wanted to see some evidence of the approaching end of time, rather than looking to the weather all she would have had to do is look at NT scholar John Meier, who is one of the very antichrists John spoke of. 

The ultimate lie

We left off last week with John talking about one of the worst sins it is possible to commit – lying about God. 

21 I do not write to you that you do not know the truth, but that you do know it and that no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ
Liar par excellence
When John asks the question, “Who is the liar?” – that was the way the Greeks introduced an absolute. They are liars par excellence. Par excellence means the highest in their class – they are the ultimate liars. It would literally be impossible to be a bigger liar. You cannot be wronger than denying the truth about Jesus. That is the force of this construction.
John has already used the term “liar” for these people a couple times before. In 1:6 he said that the one claiming to have fellowship with Him while walking in the darkness is a liar. In 2:4 he said the one who claims to know Him without keeping His commands is a liar. But the one who denies Jesus is the liar.

The ultimate truth 
That makes Jesus the ultimate standard of truth
If it is impossible to tell a bigger lie than you tell when you twist the truth about Jesus, then Jesus is the ground and basis and standard of all truth. If there is no bigger lie than to deny Christ, then there is no bigger truth than to confess Christ. The fountain out of which all truth flows is the truth about Jesus. 
In our culture the biggest moron is the one who rejects science. If you do not know philosophy – that is excusable. If you are not really up to speed on world history or American literature – that is OK. But reject something that is regarded as scientific – and you are a primitive blockhead. Our culture thinks science is the highest and most fundamental source of truth. And what John is saying is, “No, there is a higher and more fundamental source of truth than that.” The biggest ignoramus is not the one who denies the laws of physics or who thinks the earth is flat. The biggest ignoramus is the one who denies Christ. That is as messed up as your thinking can possibly get.
If you are wrong in your beliefs about whether tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetables, that will not have much impact on anything that really matters in life. If you are wrong about whether an object in motion will tend to stay in motion that will have a lot bigger impact on your life. (You might stand on the Interstate thinking all those objects in motion toward me at 75 mph are no real threat.) Different errors have different levels of consequence. The thing that will mess up your life more than anything else if you are wrong about it is the truth about Jesus.
We need to teach this to our kids. What do we teach them when they do not understanding biblical principles and we blow it off as no big deal, but they bring home an F on their report card at school and we flip out? Or we do not think twice about them missing church or Sunday school or youth group, but no way will I even consider letting you miss a day of school. Out of one side of our mouths we tell them that spiritual things are most important, but then our behavior points in another direction. Or how about when we get more riled up over someone who disagrees with our politics than someone who teaches false doctrine? You hear a speech by a candidate you really dislike, and it makes you mad, and then you hear a preacher preach heresy and you disagree, but it barely touches your emotions at all. Everything in our lives should point to what we believe is the highest and greatest and most important truth of all – the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ.
The truth about Jesus
And what is the truth about Jesus? It is what the antichrists deny.

22 Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ 

Wrongly dividing the Word – separating the 2 natures

The liars are the people who wanted to separate the historical man Jesus from the eternal Son of God, and there were two main groups doing that. One group said Jesus’ body was not real – he was a phantom. He did not make footprints when he walked. The other group believed the man Jesus received the Christ-spirit only after His baptism, and only up until just prior to His death. The Christ and the man were two separate entities that were only joined together temporarily.
The unbelieving, sinful, human heart resists the idea that the eternal Word of God is identified with Jesus of Nazareth alone, because if that is the case that means every human being in the whole wide world has to obey this one man. He is the supreme Authority over all people. What He says is absolute law, and everyone’s eternal destiny is determined by Him. The exclusivity of that deeply offends the proud, autonomous, human heart. People do not mind acknowledging the existence of a supreme God as long as He remains some vague abstraction, because then they can mold Him into whatever concept of God they like. But when you point to a specific man who said and did specific things, and who demands total allegiance, the sinful human heart recoils from that.
So throughout the book, John has been using language that makes it impossible to separate the Christ from Jesus the human being. That is why John calls Jesus (the man) the eternal Word of God. And he talks about Jesus’ blood purifying us, so you cannot get away with saying the Christ Spirit left Jesus prior to the cross.
Anyone who teaches anything other than the full deity and full humanity of Christ is an antichrist. Any schizophrenic view of Jesus that tries to separate His human nature and His divine nature is nothing but the deception of the antichrist.
The hypostatic union
(The word “nature” means “set of characteristics”). Jesus is one person with two natures: a divine nature and a human nature. He always had His divine nature. He always was, is, and always will be 100% God. He never became God nor did He at any moment ever lose or give up His deity.
So for all of eternity past, up until 2000 years ago, He was one person with one nature – a divine nature. But then when He came into the womb of the virgin Mary He took on a second nature – a human nature. From that point on He was 100% God and 100% human. And His two natures are joined together so perfectly and so completely that whatever happens to one nature can be said to be true of the person.
If you deny His humanity then He did not really die for us, because God cannot die. And if you deny His deity then His death does not matter, because the only reason He can die for our sins is because His life is of infinite worth because He is God.
Ultimate truth
And all that is not just truth – it is the ultimate truth. If denying it is the ultimate lie, then that makes it the ultimate truth. It is the most basic starting point of knowledge. It is a measure of all wisdom. If you know every other fact in the universe but you are wrong about who Jesus is, you are a dunce. And if you are right about who Jesus is and ignorant about everything else in the universe, you are wise. That is not to suggest other education is unimportant. If your starting place is sound, then the more other knowledge you gain the better, because it increases your knowledge of Christ. Apart from knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, information about astronomy or political science or history or math or even theology is all worthless. Those things have importance only inasmuch as they relate to the truth about Christ. But once you know and believe the truth about Christ, those things become very important because they fill out your knowledge of Christ with greater depth. Astronomy shows you the glory and power of Christ. History shows you the work of Christ. Math and science enable you to use the creation effectively as you serve Christ. Political science shows you how to pour out the mercy of Christ and justice of Christ among people. Which is more merciful and kind for poor people – to lower taxes to create a stronger economy where they will be able to find jobs and enjoy lower prices, or to raise taxes and distribute that money among the poor? Which results in more justice – to have harsher and swifter penalties for criminals in order to deter crime, or to have softer penalties and a slower process to avoid accidentally punishing the innocent? Should you vote for the party that is more likely to focus on protecting the environment or the party that is more likely to focus on protecting the unborn? Whatever political party you belong to you should belong to it because the truth about the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ compels you to support that party.

The ultimate conflict 

So we are dealing here with the ultimate lie and the ultimate truth, which is why John says that the presence of these antichrists is proof that it is the last hour. Because it is in the last hour that the ultimate lie and ultimate truth collide in the ultimate war.

22 …Such a man is the antichrist

18 … even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 

Battle lines
One of the things John is working to accomplish in this section is to draw clear battle lines in this conflict. Remember when he said that the antichrists were not really from the Apostles in verse 19?

(They went out from us but they were not really from us)

He uses that same word “from” in verse 21.

21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from (ek) the truth.

Just as the antichrists were not really from the Apostles, so no lie comes from the truth. Then he goes on to say that the doctrine of the antichrists is the ultimate lie. You have an anointing – God the Spirit living inside you teaching you the truth. And what they are teaching is a lie, which means it did not come from the Holy Spirit.
I think the point John is making with all that is simply this - They have absolutely nothing to do with you and you have absolutely nothing to do with them. You have within you a Fountain of truth – the Holy Spirit. He shows you the truth. And He is not showing you anything that confuses the truth about Christ. They are teaching anti-Christ doctrine, and so the source of their teaching is something other than the Holy Spirit. 
They are anti-you
That is no doubt also part of the reason why John uses this word “anti-Christ” to describe them, and the word “anointing” to describe the Holy Spirits work inside you. The word “Christ” (or the Hebrew equivalent “Messiah”) literally means “anointed one.” So if “Christ” means “anointed one” what does “anti-Christ” mean? (Anti-anointed one)
So can you see what John is saying? They are anti-anointed ones, but you have an anointing. Do not be deceived by them. Do not listen to them. Do not follow them. Do not give them a sympathetic hearing. Why? Because they are anti-Jesus and anti-you! To be against God’s anointed means to be against both the Messiah and His people. You have an anointing and they are anti-anointeds. 
John wants to draw the battle lines. He wants us to know with crystal clear precision what the two sides are. Do not be seduced over to the other side. Do not love the world or anything in the world. Do not be drawn in by their slick teaching and deceptions. They are anti-God, anti-Messiah, anti-anointed, anti-saints, anti-you.
Opposition of God’s anointed - Understand the Armageddon battle lines
I hope you can see the significance of what John is saying here. What he is saying is that the battle of Armageddon has already begun! Are you all familiar with Armageddon? In Rev.16 the powers of the world all gather their forces together for one final battle against God’s anointed One and God pours out His wrath on them full strength.
Remember when I told you that the end, in Scripture, does not have as its primary meaning “stopping point” but rather “fulfillment of purpose”? The end of the world (the purpose of all that has happened – the final culmination of everything) is that moment when the Anointed One, the Messiah, comes back from heaven, engages all the forces of evil in one final battle, and defeats them once and for all. Have you ever walked into a room where a game is on TV and asked, “What two teams are playing?” Throughout Scripture God has made it plain what the two teams are. 
The world is not clear at all on that. Some of them think the main struggle in the universe is the communists against the capitalists. Others think it is the whites against the blacks. Some think it is the poor against the rich, or the criminals against the law-abiding citizens. For some it is those who want to protect the environment against those who want to ruin it. And for a lot of folks it is just us against them. And the “them” is just all those morons out there who do not agree with us. And the “us” is…me.
There is a war going on, and it does have just two sides. But none of those that I mentioned are the two sides. The two sides are these: Christ and His anointed ones vs. the Antichrist and all his little antichrists. It is the anointed vs. the anti-anointed, the favored of God vs. the ones who oppose the favored of God.
And the ultimate end will be that day when the big final showdown between Christ and His enemies takes place. That is why when Paul was proving to the Thessalonians that the Second Coming could not have possibly taken place yet the first thing he pointed to was the fact that the Antichrist has not yet been revealed. Psalm 2 is one of the most beloved psalms in the Psalter, and it is about the battle of Armageddon.

Psalm 2:2 The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. 3 "Let us break their chains," they say, "and throw off their fetters."

They think if they gather all their forces together they can break free from God.

4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. 5 Then he rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, 6 "I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill."

The rest of the psalm goes on to talk about how God’s Anointed One will crush His enemies to pieces like pottery. That is where human history is headed. Sinful mankind is going to be done in not by temperature of the globe, or running out of natural resources, or nuclear war, or disease, or running out of topsoil or the bees all dying from the cell phones or anything like that. The demise of sinful humanity will come at a place called Armageddon where the Anointed of God will defeat all those who oppose the anointed of God. The great threat to mankind is not ecological or meteorological or social. It is theological. When NT scholars become so arrogant as to say that there is anything that takes place that has no theological significance – that is when mankind needs to worry.
I tell you all that so you can understand John’s logic when he says that the presence of the many antichrists right now is proof that these are indeed the last days (that is, the days in which the culmination of God’s purposes in human history are coming to a head). We know these are the last days because of the level of opposition there is to God’s anointed. It is not just a matter of opposing God. Men have opposed and resisted the rule of God right from the very beginning in the Garden of Eden. What signals the end is when that opposition is focused on God’s Anointed King – the Messiah.
And that is what is happening in our age. The effort throughout the world over the past 2000 years has been focused against Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the most opposed figure who has ever lived. There are millions of people in every age who fight against Him, oppose Him, write books against Him, mock Him in their classrooms, use His name as a swear word, kill His followers, etc. Jesus is on the receiving end of a world-wide attack.
Now to some ears that might sound strange, because if you asked the average person on the street, “Who is the most beloved human being who has ever lived” they would probably say, “Jesus.” Most people in our culture claim to have high regard for Jesus. They say He is a great teacher, great healer, great prophet, great leader, great example, great guy all around. So if everyone has such high esteem for Jesus how can I stand up here and say He is the most opposed person ever? The reason is this: The world’s conceptions of greatness are so warped and perverted that what they think is high regard actually amounts to blasphemous slander.
The blasphemy of faint praise
Have you ever heard the phrase “to condemn with faint praise”? It means you can actually condemn someone by praising them too little. For example, if someone points to me and says, “Darrell is a terrific guy. He is really growing and making great progress. He hasn’t beat up his wife in over a month now!” That would be condemnation disguised as praise. I have never laid an angry finger on my wife in my life, and so to say it that way would be to slander my reputation.
If Bill Gates moved to Thornton, and I were introducing him and said, “This man is among the top 1000 richest people in Thornton” that would be misleading. It would sound like high praise if you did not know anything about Bill Gates. But if you know anything about his wealth then you know it is lying to introduce him in such a way as to make it seem like he is somewhere near the level of the top 1000 richest people in Thornton, Co. If you praise a person with praise that is orders of magnitude lower than what is fitting, you are actually lying about the person.
And the slander and blasphemy of speaking of Jesus in such a way as to make it seem like He is somewhere around the level of even the greatest of mere men is a slander of infinite proportions. In fact, it is probably worse than what the Pharisees did when they said Jesus was demonic. If you call Jesus a demon you probably would not lead all that many people astray, because the claim is so easily seen as false. But if you say Jesus was a great man (but a mere man) then you can lead people astray by the millions.
That is an infinite blasphemy not only because it is an infinite understatement, but also because when you say that you are calling Jesus Himself a liar. Jesus did not allow any wiggle room on this. You can be mixed up and confused about a lot of things and still be saved. But you cannot be wrong about who Jesus is. If you are wrong about that your sins will not be forgiven when you die. (Jn.8:24)
Jesus claimed to be the I AM - the self-existent God of the OT. (Jn.8:24,28, 13:19) He also claimed… 
•	to be the Messiah (Mt.16:17, 26:64)
•	to be God’s unique Son (Jn.8:29)
•	to be the only way to the Father (Jn.14:6)
•	to be without sin (Jn.8:29)
•	to be pre-existent before His birth (Jn.8:58)
•	to do miracles (Jn.10:25,26), 
•	to be from heaven (Jn.3:17, 8:21-26)
•	to be the sacrifice for our sins (Jn.3:13-17)
•	to have been physically raised from the dead (Lk.24:39), and
•	to be returning to save His people and judge the world (Rev.22:20)
Anything that makes Him look like less than all that is blasphemy by faint praise.
The false religions of the world distort the truth about Jesus Christ. They are antichrists. The Muslims say that Jesus never died on the cross. Judaism reduces Jesus to a mere man. Buddhism teaches that your own efforts matter more than Jesus’ death on the cross, and there is no divine Judge anyway. Hinduism says God never became man and bore our sin. The Mormons say Jesus is the devil’s brother. The Jehovah’s Witnesses say Jesus is a mere angel. T.D. Jakes and The United Pentecostals deny that Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity. (In fact, they deny there even is a Trinity.) Scientology teaches that Jesus died for His own sins. Why do you suppose that is? There is not any world-wide opposition against Buddha or Confucius or Mohammad. Nor is there against Abraham or Moses or David or Elijah. Why such a unified opposition to Jesus and His claims? 
How could people of such vastly different religious persuasions and traditions all be so united against this one man? Was it because Jesus was a ruthless, maniacal murderer like Stalin or Hitler or Saddam Hussein? No. The majority of people in our culture would probably say He was among the kindest men who ever lived. The reason there is a worldwide opposition to Jesus Christ is very simple – He is the Anointed One of God. This sinful, evil world is in rebellion against their Creator and that rebellion is carefully organized in a world-wide, systematic, unified effort orchestrated by Satan. That is why the presence of the antichrists is proof that these are the last days – the age that is realizing the culmination of human history.
And by the way, even liberal Christianity is against Jesus Christ. When you hear the Jesus Seminar scholars and other liberals talk about the quest for the historical Jesus- whenever they use that term “historical Jesus” the point is to differentiate that from the mythical Jesus of the Bible. They say the Jesus who worked miracles and rose from the dead is useful as a religious idea to believe in, but He never actually existed in history. And the historical Jesus was an ordinary human being. That is the view of the great majority of New Testament scholars. [In fact, when I saw John Meier’s name in that ABC News article I Googled the name and the very first thing that came up was an interview with him in which he was discussing the idea that there may actually be some connection between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of faith. He was quick to add that he was not suggesting that the miracles actually happened, or that Jesus’ rose from the dead in time and space, but in some sense the mythical Jesus of faith (who does not actually exist in time and space) has some relationship to the historical Jesus. But for all practical purposes, the historical man Jesus was not the eternal, almighty, creator God, which is why I said that New Testament scholar John Meier is an antichrist. The religions of the world, including liberal Christianity, are on the offensive in a united effort opposing Jesus Christ, which is a sure sign that it is in this age that the culmination of human history is all coming to a head.

Armageddon has started. And you and I are caught up in it, because we have an anointing from the same God who anointed Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus said, 

John 15:18-19 If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 

I was reading in the secular news this week about the imprisonment and torture and killing of students in North Korea because they were caught reading a Bible, and similar things in Iran. And then I read a story about two pastors who were handing out gospel leaflets and were told by a police officer that they must cease immediately, because what they were doing was a hate crime (since it was in a Muslim area). Handing someone a tract that magnifies Jesus Christ as Savior is a hate crime. That took place not in Iran or Saudi Arabia – but in England. And the United States is not far behind. The United States military suspended a marine for handing out coins that had John 3:16 on them. The U.S. military spokesman apologized and promised appropriate punishment for that marine. 
So it is starting even here, but in many places around the world persecution is going full blast, and has been for a long time. Hostility against God’s anointed around the world is the worst it has ever been. More Christians were martyred for their faith in the 20th Century than in all the previous 19 centuries combined. The persecutions under Nero or Diocletian in the Roman Empire were minor and brief compared to what is going on around the world today. And all indications are that the 21st Century will be even worse than the 20th. 
There is a great deal of affection and love in this world for the imaginary Christ they have invented after their own image. But as soon as someone starts presenting the real Christ, the one who claims to be the only way, and the one who demands absolute allegiance and loyalty, and the one who threatens you with punishment for your sins and eternity in hell, and , then the hostility becomes evident very quickly.

The ultimate decision

We are witnessing the fulfillment of human history. The antichrist forces are in full rebellion against God. It is all out war, and there are only two sides. There are no neutral parties in this war. John leaves us only two options – denial or confession.

 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 
Denial of the truth is denial of the person
Confess the truth about Christ as a genuine expression of faith from your heart, or deny the truth – those are the only two possibilities. And John is careful to make sure we understand that denial of the facts is denial of the Person. Anyone who becomes deceived about the nature of Christ and falls into false doctrine might as well be standing in the courtyard with Peter swearing that he does not know Jesus.
Your Christology (beliefs about Jesus) is not merely a matter of education. It is a matter of personal relationship. How many facts do you know about Noah’s Ark? That is a matter of education. How many of the 12 Tribes of Israel can you list from memory? That is a matter of education. What do you believe about the nature of Jesus Christ? That is a matter of relationship.
It is a matter of relationship because He has revealed Himself through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is an excellent communicator. So if the Lord Jesus Christ has revealed Himself to me in a clear way, and yet my understanding of Him is messed up, the only explanation for how that could happen is there is something in my heart that is resisting the truth about Him. This is one of the problems with those who argue that it is possible to know Jesus as Savior while refusing to bow to Him as Lord. If you know a Jesus who is not Lord over everything, including you, then you do not know the true Jesus. So once the truth about Jesus Christ has been taught to you, if you reject it or gravitate toward some other concept of Jesus that you find more interesting – that is a denial of Him as a person. It is a personal, relational turning your back on Him.
Unity with the Father
And if you do that with Jesus you have done it with the Father as well.

23 No one who denies the Son has the Father

People who claim to know God who do not bow the knee to Jesus Christ are deceived. The Father and Son are unified in such total unity that it is absolutely impossible to know the one without knowing the other, or to accept the one while rejecting the other. In this age God the Father has revealed Himself only through the Son. So if you are wrong about who Jesus is, you cut yourself off from God altogether.
Confessing Christ
So we are all faced with the ultimate decision: confess Christ or deny Christ. And please understand that confession or denial is something you do with your heart, not just your mouth.

Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven

Confessing Christ is not just a matter of speaking words. Confession, in Scripture, refers to an honest, public statement of what is truly in your heart. If it is not truly in your heart it is not a confession. It is just a lie. The claim has to match what is actually in your heart.
And what is it exactly that has to be in your heart? All that Jesus claimed about Himself – all those things I mentioned earlier. Either you genuinely believe and boldly profess all that about Jesus, or you deny both Him and the Father. Those are the only two options.
Having God
And if you believe and profess the truth about Jesus, it says you have God and eternal life. Eternal life we will talk about next time, but for now let’s close by thinking through this idea of having God.

23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 

This is yet another way of describing personal interaction with God. First John called it fellowship with God, then knowing God, then loving God, then walking in the light, then remaining in God, and now he puts it another way – having God.
Saying it that way highlights the fact that part of having fellowship with God is actually having a claim on Him. You can regard Him as your own Father. A lot of people think they have a claim on God. They think they have the right to pray to Him and ask Him for things and expect blessing from Him. But only those who confess the truth about Christ have any claim on Him as their Father.
Maybe you know that there is nothing real about your relationship with God. For you it is just commitment to a religion. You do not really have God as a Father. There is not really any actual love in your heart for Him – you do not even know Him. And now You have been presented with the ultimate truth. Jesus Christ is almighty God in human flesh and He came to earth from heaven to bear our guilt on the cross in our place so that if anyone believes from his or her heart the truth about Him, that person will know Him like a child knows his father, and will enjoy eternal life. You are on one side or the other in the ultimate conflict. You have been presented with the ultimate truth. And you must now make the ultimate decision. Confess Christ that you might truly know God. Those of you who do have God as your Father – see to it that this Word remains in you so you will remain in Him.

Benediction: Ro.16:25-27 Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him- 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Overcoming Evil Part 6 Let the Word Remain in You 2:24-28

Summary: Nothing is more important than the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and nothing is more important in your life than what will happen to you on that day. For most people it will be the most agonizing, horrifying day of their existence. For many Christians it will be a day of joy, but mixed with shame and loss and rebuke and even chastisement. But for you it could be a day of commendation by the Lord, joy beyond imagination, and lavish reward. And it will for sure be that way for you if you remain in Him. And in order to remain in Him you must see to it that His Word remains in you.

Step 3: Unashamed at His Coming
The most important thing
Primary focus
Longing for it
What’s so great about His appearing?
The Olivet Discourse
1)	Timing
2)	The Event
Rapture
3)	Judgment Day
The Evaluation of Christ
Condemnation
Reproof/chastisement
Commendation
Reward
Step 2: Remain in Him
The Key to being unashamed on that day is remaining in Him.
John’s emphasis on remaining
Remaining = Promised Eternal Life
Eternal life = knowing God
Uninterrupted fellowship
Step 1: Let the Word Remain in You
The ministry of the Spirit
Daily interaction with the Word
Don’t seek the truth if you’re not willing to accept it
Satan’s Tools to prevent this
Forgetting
Deception
Laziness
Human wisdom
Misunderstanding
The worries of life
The deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things
Trouble and persecution
Harmony of the Spirit and the Word
Conclusion

24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If what you heard remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he himself promised us--even eternal life. 26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is true, not a lie--just as it has taught you, remain in him. 28 And now, dear children, remain in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. 

Step 3: Unashamed at His Coming
The most important thing
What is the best thing that has happened to you this month? What is the best thing that has ever happened to you? That is a little harder question to answer. How about this: What is the best thing that ever has happened or ever will happen? The best thing that will ever happen also happens to be the most beautiful thing that will ever happen, and the most important thing that will ever happen. More important even than the creation of the world. More important than Jesus’ death on the cross. More spectacular than the creation of the new heavens and new earth.
It is mentioned an average of 1.5 times per chapter throughout the entire NT (380 times in 260 chapters). And one of those 380 references is right here in 1 Jn.2:28.

28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

The most important, most beautiful, and most glorious thing that will ever happen in human history, the best thing that will ever take place will be the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The NT uses four different words to refer to that event. They are translated by three English words: the Revelation of Christ, the Appearing of Christ, and the Coming of Christ. Revelation is the Greek word avpoka,luyij. We get our word “apocalypse” from it. Appearing translates two Greek words (fanero,w and evpifa,neia). We get our word “epiphany” from the second one. The word carries the idea of a visible display that is spectacular and awesome. Coming is the Greek word parousi,a. In v.28 John uses two of those terms (…so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming).
The trajectory of John’s line of reasoning is notoriously difficult to track. He seems to spiral and circle and double back. But whatever the flight path of the arrow, what we can see is that when it finally reaches its destination it hits solidly in the center of the bull’s-eye of the Second Coming. That is where this passage is going, and I want to point that out to you right up front so we understand the significance of the first part of the passage. We are going to work backward through this text. I have three points, and we are starting with point three. And you will see why as we go.

Primary focus
The main focus of the Christian life is the Second Coming. Scripture speaks much, much more often about the Second Coming than about going to heaven. The significance of heaven is not mainly that we are going there, but that we look forward to the arrival of a Savior who is coming from there.

Philippians 3:20 our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you go to a really good restaurant you might like the atmosphere or the comfortable chairs or the good service, but the main thing to look forward to is the food. If you are going to the Grand Canyon your main focus should not be the hot dog stand. It is the view. And when we think about life, the main thing is the arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. That is the focus of everything.

1 Timothy 6:14 keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ

Titus 2:13 we wait for the blessed hope-- the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ

James 5:7 Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. … be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near.

Life is all about His Coming, and we are not just waiting for it and preparing for it. 

Longing for it
If we have a heart that loves God we are longing for Him to appear.

1 Corinthians 1:7 you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

And He will reward anyone who has that longing.

1 Tim.4:8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day-- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

What’s so great about His appearing?
If He is present with us now, why is it such a big deal when He “comes”? It is a big deal because all the grace that we receive now through His presence will be increased exponentially. Is there a joy that we receive from interactions of love with Him as we experience His invisible presence now? Yes.

1 Pe.1:8-9 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 

So yes, there is joy that comes from His invisible presence. But in that very same context Peter makes it crystal clear that the joy of His visible presence will be far greater.

1 Peter 1:5-6 through faith (you) are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you greatly rejoice

Peter goes on to say that we even rejoice in our trials and suffering because of the benefit they will bring us on the day that Jesus Christ is revealed (v.7) And then v.13: 

13 Therefore … set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

“Fully” means we have no other hope.
At first it seems like a contradiction because Scripture calls us to place our hope in the promises God has given us for grace in this life. But that is not a contradiction, because all the hope you place in the promises of this life are, in effect, hope in the Second Coming, because all the blessings of this life are only good because of the fact that they are samples of what happens at the Second Coming.
When you experience the invisible presence of God in this life the result is grace, and that grace takes a lot of forms: Peace, Joy, Delight, Strength, Guidance, Insight, Comfort, Power, Love, Safety, Awe, Assurance Enablement, etc. 
The grace you will experience from His visible presence will be far greater than the grace you experience from His invisible presence. So if you like the feelings of peace and joy and all the rest that you have had in this life when you have experienced His invisible presence, you will really love the Second Coming.
This really opened my eyes this week. Instead of just enjoying God’s grace each day, I realized what I need to be doing is enjoying it as a sample of the Second Coming so that all the joys of life make me long for that day all the more.
We worship a God who is so good and beautiful and marvelous that His mere presence is all that is required for us to have the greatest joy and peace and delight that we will ever experience or could ever experience. There is nothing about heaven that you will like more.
The Olivet Discourse
Jesus preached an entire sermon on His Second Coming. It is known as the Olivet Discourse and it is found in Mt.24-25. In that sermon Jesus taught about three things. Point #1 had to do with the timing of His Coming.

Timing
In the first 14 verses Jesus teaches that the Second Coming will be preceded by a time of deception, tribulation, persecution, apostasy, and world-wide missions. (Mt.24:4-14) Then in ch.25 He gave three parables calling us to be prepared for a long delay and to be ready at all times.

The Event
Then He said some things about the event itself. What, exactly, is going to happen? What will it be like? I watched a news special this week about a former police officer who is now claiming to be Jesus Christ. He has thousands of followers who worship Him, and He lives on top of a hill in a remote area in Siberia. Could it happen that way perhaps? He just lives a quiet life on top of the hill while the people study his writings. Could it be that the Second Coming will be like that? No.

Matthew 24:23-27 At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. 24 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—as much as possible. 25 See, I have told you ahead of time. 26 "So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' (or on top of a hill) do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. 27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

When He returns Jesus will appear in spectacular fashion like lightning in the sky so that everyone sees Him at once. He will come with such spectacular splendor that the splendor itself will destroy the antichrist.

2 Thessalonians 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.

Literally it says, “By the appearance of His coming” (the evpifa,neia of His parousi,a). The display will be so bright and so spectacular and so awesome that it will blast the antichrist right out of existence.
Rapture
And part of what will make it so awesome will be the entourage surrounding Him. That is the reason for the rapture. 1 Thes.4:17 says that when He returns the dead in Christ will be resurrected and we will all meet Him in the air. And the reason we will meet Him in the air is to accompany Him in His arrival to earth with our glorified bodies along with the angels in a staggering, overwhelming entourage.

Colossians 3:4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

1 Peter 5:1 To the elders among you, I appeal as … one who also will share in the glory to be revealed

And if you are wondering how your body becomes glorified, we will see that in next week’s passage.

1 John 3:2 when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

His visible appearance will be such that just by looking at Him we will be transformed.
So the moment He returns you will get a glorified body and you will find yourself suddenly up in the sky above the earth with Jesus and all the rest of the saints and angels. When the rest of the world hears all the commotion – the loud shouts from the angel and the trumpet blast, and they see the flashing and brilliant, bright light, and they run outside to take a look, they will see the magnificent Lord Jesus Christ in all His spectacular, indescribable beauty and brightness and glory, surrounded by millions of glorified saints (us), along with the angels. And they will tremble and shake in fear and unimaginable terror. And not only will it be exceedingly glorious, but there will be a display of power that rattles the whole world.

Matthew 24:29 ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.' 30 "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 

It will be nothing like the guy on the hill in Siberia. 

Judgment Day
So that is how it will happen. But then what? We meet Him in the air, every eye will see Him, the knees of every person who has ever lived will buckle so that the whole creation is bowed before Him. He lands on earth with all of us. And there we are, standing on the earth looking around… then what? What happens next is Jesus takes a seat.

Mt.25:31-32 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 

After the rapture and Jesus’ big entrance into the world, He will take a seat on His throne which will have the very glory of heaven. And it will be time for Judgment Day.
Jesus finishes up ch.24 with a long section warning us not to get caught unprepared when He returns. And He explains why in ch.25 in three parables. The parable of the virgins - those who are not prepared when He returns will be shut out of the great Messianic banquet. The parable of the talents - those who are found to have been lazy and unfaithful, and who did not work hard for the Lord while He was gone will be thrown into hell. And the sheep and the goats - Those found to be goats (the ones who did not love Jesus’ brothers for Jesus’ sake), will be thrown into hell.
But Judgment Day will not only be negative. It will also be reward day. The virgins who were not ready were shut out, but the ones who were ready went with the bridegroom into the wedding banquet. The faithful steward and the loving sheep will be rewarded.

The Evaluation of Christ
There will be both punishment and reward, and the basis of both will be Jesus Christ’s evaluation of each person’s life. He will examine your life and then speak His verdict.
Condemnation
If His pronouncement is that He never knew you personally, you will be condemned to hell forever. No appeals, no arguing, no negotiating, no higher court – His pronouncement is final.

Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
Reproof/chastisement 
A second possibility is that Jesus will determine that you did indeed know Him by faith, and that you are saved, but that you were unfaithful in serving Him. If that happens, He will require you to give an account for that.

Romans 14:10-12 we will all stand before God's judgment seat….each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Church leaders will have to give an account for how they led the church (Heb.13:17), and you will give an account for your ministry as well. In fact, God is going to require us to give an account for every single word that has ever come out of our mouths. (Mt.12:36) There will be consequences for sin.

2 Corinthians 5:8-10 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

You will receive what is due you for your good deeds and for your bad ones.

1 Corinthians 3:11-15 No one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. 

If you hear that and think, “I don’t care if that happens – just as long as I get to go to heaven” then that is a heart of pure unbelief. If the Lord warns you against the possibility that all your work will be shown to be worthless, and you will suffer loss, and that has no impact on your heart, it means you do not really believe it is true.
Think about it - does it bother you when you lose temporal things? Would you mind if someone stole your car? Or if your house burned down and you lost everything with no insurance? Would it bother you if you lost your wallet or car keys? I promise you the loss Jesus is talking about is far worse than any of that. If your ministry is found to be unacceptable, you will suffer the worst loss you will have ever suffered in your entire existence.
And that loss will be compounded by devastating shame. To have the only One whose opinion matters disapprove of you will hurt more than any disapproval you have ever experienced. To be shamed in front of important people is hard, but to be shamed in front of the Archangel Michael, and Gabriel, all the other angels and all of the righteous - that will be a deeper and more profound shame than any shame anyone has ever experienced before.
The prospect of experiencing that shame should terrify us. We are warned against it repeatedly, including here in today’s text.

28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed 

Paul’s greatest prayer for his people was that they would not experience shame on that Day.

1 Thessalonians 3:13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

So point three of this text is that our goal is to be unashamed at the Coming of Christ.
Commendation
So when you hear all that you might think, “That sounds like a terrible day. Won’t everyone experience mostly shame and mostly loss? We are all sinners, we all sin every day, and even our godly actions are shot through with the contamination of mixed motives, pride, selfishness, and lack of faith. So will anybody get a good evaluation? Yes. The lazy servant who did nothing for the master’s estate will be thrown into hell, but the servants who were faithful will be commended and richly rewarded.

21 "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! 

If the most humiliating and painful shame imaginable is to be shamed by the most important judge in front of everyone, then the greatest honor imaginable would be to be commended by the most important judge in front of everyone and that is what will happen. At the Second Coming you will actually receive praise from God!

1 Corinthians 4:5 wait till the Lord comes. … At that time each will receive his praise from God.

That praise from Him will make you happier than anything has ever made you. The fruits of your faithful ministry will be the basis for unspeakable joy for you on Judgment Day.

1 Thessalonians 2:19 For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?
Reward
And based on that commendation you will be rewarded.

Matthew 25:21 Well done good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' 

Luke 19:17 "'Well done, my good servant!' his master replied. 'Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'

If the Lord returns and finds that you have worked hard and have been diligent in working to advance His Kingdom, He will reward you handsomely on that day. You were faithful in your calling, setting up chairs on Sunday morning or praying for the people in your small group, and He makes you governor over ten cities.
You might say, “But what if I don’t want ten cities?” The point of the ten cities is just to illustrate how disproportionate the reward will be to your work. The Lord will reward you with exponentially greater things. The key statement is the second half of v.21.

21 …Come and share your master's happiness!

That is the issue of reward. Whatever reward you are given you will love because it will be a sharing in the happiness of God, and God is infinitely and perfectly happy.
Just think for a moment about how happy God is. He has total power and total freedom. There is absolutely nothing that can stand in the way of Him having everything He wants whenever He wants it, and He only desires that which is best and that brings the greatest joy. So you have a God with unlimited power and unlimited wisdom and unlimited freedom. That is a formula that equals unlimited happiness. And to those who are faithful He will say, “Come and share in that happiness.” So at the Second Coming Jesus will invite you to come join Him at the great Messianic banquet and feast with Him, He will lavish massive, ridiculous, disproportionate reward upon you, and He will invite you to come share in His happiness. Now look at v.34.

Matthew 25:34 Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

If you are a believer and you are faithful, this is going to be the best day of your life – and these rewards will not be fleeting or temporary, like earthly pleasures always are. 

1 Peter 5:4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

Step 2: Remain in Him
The Key to being unashamed on that day is remaining in Him.
So how do you see to it that the return of Christ will be a day of joy and reward and commendation rather than shame and disgrace? The answer is in 1 John 2:28. Look at how the verse ends:

… so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.
The first half of the verse tells us something, and the purpose of that thing is so that we will be confident and unashamed at His coming. So if we can just look and see what comes before the “so that,” then we have our answer.

And now, dear children, remain in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

If you want that to be a day of joy rather than shame you do not have to be perfect. You only have to remain (or abide) in Him. 
John’s emphasis on remaining
When you read through this chapter you start to get the feeling that the topic of remaining in God is on John’s mind.

6 Whoever claims to remain in him must walk as Jesus did. 
10 Whoever loves his brother remains in the light
24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 
27 … remain in him.
28 And now, dear children, remain in him
Remaining = Promised Eternal Life
So what does it mean to remain in Him? He tells us what it means in v.25.

24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he himself promised us--even eternal life.

So remaining in Him is closely connected with eternal life.

Eternal life = knowing God
So then what is eternal life? Jesus answered that in His high priestly prayer:

John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Eternal life is knowing God personally and we have talked about that in detail in this study. It starts with learning and believing and loving the truth about Him and it also includes being able to interact with Him in fellowship (to be listened to, spoken to, guided, comforted, etc by Him).

Uninterrupted fellowship
And it is eternal in that it is an interaction that begins at conversion and continues uninterrupted by physical death. Think of that split-second interval when you die in between being conscious of this world and being conscious of the presence of Christ in paradise. It does not exist. There is no split-second interval. When a Christian dies there is a seamless, uninterrupted consciousness at death. To be apart from the body is to be immediately in the presence of the Lord.
So eternal life is uninterrupted access to the grace of God. Unbelievers will have conscious existence forever, but will not have access to God’s grace. The word “remain” often means to dwell or lodge somewhere, or to spend time with a person to keep that person company or to have fellowship with that person. When you remain in God and He remains in you it refers to the fellowship with God that John has been talking about throughout the book. You live with Him and He lives with you all day long, you are in each other’s company, and there is a continual, constant, ongoing interaction between you and Him. That is remaining in Him.
It does not refer to religious status. It does not just mean to be converted. It is a continual, relational interaction. And John says if you have that continual, relational interaction with the Lord you will be unashamed on Judgment Day. If you do not, you will be shamed on Judgment Day.

Step 1: Let the Word Remain in You

So now the question is, how do you make sure you remain in Him? What is the key to remaining in Him? Look back up to v.24. Look at how that verse ends:

… If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.

So again, if we can look behind that “if” then we can find out how to remain in the Lord. And the NIV, for some reason, shortens the sentence, but in the original John repeated the first phrase.

24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.

I don’t know if the NIV translators felt the Holy Spirit was being too wordy there or what, but if there is some repetition in God’s Word there is a reason for it, and it ought to be translated. John wanted to emphasize the condition. If you are concerned about making sure you remain in God, you will accomplish that by seeing to it that the Word remains in you. You will not remain in God unless you obey this command and have His Word remain in you.
If you have been influenced by the teaching that says once you are converted it does not matter what you do after that - if you think your situation on Judgment Day is all sewed up because of your conversion, you need to take a close look at the word “if” in this passage.
The ministry of the Spirit
So let’s think through what it means for the Word of God to remain in you. Obviously this means more than reading or studying or memorizing the Bible. Unbelievers can do all that. What John is talking about is the internal activity of the Holy Spirit as He uses the Word in your heart in such a way that it results in your obedience. That is why he brings up the anointing again in v.27.

27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him.

The anointing is the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit in your heart. As you immerse yourself into the Word of God, the Spirit softens your heart to accept it, enables you to understand it, and inclines your affections to receive it and submit to it and delight in it. It is when all this is going on in your heart that the Word of God is remaining in you.
Jesus made a very similar remark in John 15.

John 15:10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love

You know the Word is remaining in you when the outcome is keeping it. (“Keeping” means guarding, cherishing, loving, holding on to it, and responding to it.)
Daily interaction with the Word
Again, the word “remain” is the normal word used to for taking up residence or lodging somewhere. So the idea is of the Word of God living with you. There is an ever-present, daily interaction. When I get up every morning in my house, my family is there – every day. Some of you show up in my house once in a while, but my wife and kids are there when I go to bed, when I wake up, lunch time, dinner time, holidays, before work, after work. They are a constant part of my life. That is what it means to live with someone. John says let the Word of God live in your life like that. It is always there, and you are always interacting with it.
And that interaction is the other part of this concept. The roof on my house is always there, but it would not be quite right to say it lives with me. There is no interaction.
The person who has the Word of God living in him is constantly hearing from the Word, and constantly responding. If your involvement with Scripture is a Sunday only affair, the Word of God does not live in you, and you are not in God. If you consider God’s Word on Sunday mornings only, you are not a believer - any more than you can claim to be someone’s wife or husband just because you see them once a week at church.
Even if you read your Bible every day, if you do not believe it, then it is not remaining in you.

John 5:38 You don't have His word remaining in you, because you don't believe 

We must approach the Word of God with hearts of faith – eager to believe whatever it says.
Don’t seek the truth if you’re not willing to accept it
Once in a while someone comes to be for counseling and they want me to help them find God’s will in a particular area of their lives. They say, “I just want to know what God wants me to do in this situation.” So we examine the situation and look to Scripture and it ends up saying something different from what they expected. It ends up pointing to a path that means they would have to give up something that they really, really do not want to give up, so they reject it.
Make sure you never do that. In the time after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and took most of the people back to Babylon, he left a remnant of poor people there and set a king over them. That king was assassinated, and the people were then afraid of Nebuchadnezzar, so they decided they should probably go to Egypt. But first they asked Jeremiah to seek the Lord’s will for them. 

Jeremiah 42:3 Pray that the LORD your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.
6 Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the LORD our God

“It does not matter what He says – we will obey. We just want to know His will.” Jeremiah says, “OK,” and he prays. And God answers him. “If you go to Egypt you will die. But if you stay here you will live and I will protect you and richly bless you.” That did not seem right to them, so they decided to go to Egypt. That just seemed to make the most sense.

20 you made a fatal mistake when you sent me to the LORD your God and said, 'Pray to the LORD our God for us; tell us everything he says and we will do it.' 21 I have told you today, but you still have not obeyed the LORD your God in all he sent me to tell you. 22 So now, be sure of this: You will die 

It is a fatal mistake to ask for God’s will if you are not willing to accept it if it means going against what you really want to do.
Satan’s Tools to prevent this
To allow the Gospel to remain in you means to see to it that it remains the governing rule and guide of your life. The last thing Satan wants is for the Word to remain in you, so that is a major focus of his attack and he has a lot of weapons.

Forgetting
Jas.1:23-25 warns us that learning Scripture and then forgetting it is worthless.
Deception
You expose yourself to false teachers, you allow your love for the world to run unchecked, and you end up falling for false doctrine. 
Laziness 
Let the flesh take over and you will never get around to doing the hard work of studying God’s Word.
Human wisdom
If you follow God’s Word only when it makes sense to you, but not when it goes against what seems true to you, then you are not following God’s Word at all.
Misunderstanding
In the parable of the soils Jesus said when the gospel is sown into the heart that does not understand it, the devil just takes it away like a bird picking up seed off the hardened ground.
The worries of life
Jesus said some people receive the Word with joy, but when the cares of life come they choke out the Word. Cleaning the house, paying the bills, returning phone calls, getting groceries, fixing the toilet, getting an oil change, going to work, cooking dinner, reading your mail – all the countless worries and cares of life. That stuff can be such a distraction, and can pin your thinking down to temporal, earthly things for such long stretches of time, that it chokes out the power of the Word in your life.
The deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things
In that same part of the parable Jesus warned about two other things that can choke out the Word: the deceitfulness of wealth and the desire for other things. You get your eye on some thing that you think will make you happy – a nicer house, nicer car, a better job, a higher salary, the lottery jackpot. And it does not matter if you get those things or even try to get them. Jesus said it is the desire for them that can choke out the Word in your heart, thinking that you need those to have joy.
Trouble and persecution
And then finally Jesus said that some hearts receive the Word and accept it and start to grow, but then trouble and persecution come and kill the life of the Word in their hearts. Their unwillingness to suffer proves stronger than their love for the Word.
Harmony of the Spirit and the Word
Once again here we see John joining the Spirit and the Word together. In our day so many people want to separate them, as if they were opposed to each other. On the one side are the people who say, “You need to get your nose out of the books and go with the Spirit.” They don’t devote themselves to study and just operate on impulse. Trying to follow the Spirit without a thorough understanding from Scripture will result in superstitious mysticism and subjectivism.
On the other side are those who turn the whole Christian life into information. For them the Spirit is Someone who did something 2000 years ago. Focusing on the Bible alone apart from the anointing ministry of the Spirit will result in misinterpreting, misunderstanding, misapplying, and inability to love and delight in and live out the Word of God. The Word and the Spirit always go together. It is the work of the Holy Spirit ministering the Word of God in your heart that will assure that you will remain in Him. If you want to have continual, intimate interaction with the Lord throughout the day every day, that will happen through the Word of God. If you are not carrying a passage of Scripture around with you all day - either memorized or written down, don’t expect to have much interaction with God.

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly

Conclusion
Nothing is more important than the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And nothing is more important in your life than what will happen to you on that day. For most people it will be the most agonizing, horrifying day of their existence. For many Christians it will be a day of joy, but mixed with shame and loss and rebuke and even chastisement. But for you it could be a day of commendation by the Lord, joy beyond imagination, and lavish reward. It will for sure be that way for you if you remain in Him, but in order to remain in Him you must see to it that His Word remains in you.

Benediction: 2 Tim 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

Overcoming Evil Part 7 Purifying Hope 2:29-3:3

Summary: Behold! What astonishing love that God made us His children! And what we will be will even be greater – more like Him as a result of seeing His attributes. And hoping in that transforms us now.

Introduction
Verse 1 Present Status – Children!
Behold!
Love
Lavished
“Called
How great
Children
Benefits
Access
Chastisement
What sorrow compares to this?
My Dad made that
They don’t know us because they didn’t know Him.
Verse 2 Future Hope – Transformation
What we will be has not yet been made known
We will be like Him
The greatest joy will be appreciating and reflecting God’s attributes
For we will see Him
How that happiness transforms you
Verse 3: Present Effect - Purification
Self-purification
Hope causes purification
The definition of hope
How hope purifies
Future hope dictates present affections
Conclusion

1 John 2:29-3:3 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. 
1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. 

Introduction 
Throughout this book so far John has been describing the kinds of ways a truly saved person interacts with God. He started out talking about fellowship with God. Then He talked about walking with God and then stepped it up to knowing God, which points to an especially intimate and close relationship. Then He talked about receiving your desires from God, and then being anointed by God, and then having God – having the Father and having the Son. All of that is powerful language describing the closeness of this relationship. But now He brings up a new aspect that goes further than any of those others – being born of God. This is the first of ten times John mentions being born of God in this book, so this turns into a major theme.

2:29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. 

John is going to start from that point and develop a detailed argument as we move through this chapter, but first he reacts with an emotional outburst as soon as his pen spells out those words “born of him.”

Verse 1 Children of God
Behold!
I love the NIV translation of the Bible, but there are some areas in which they really blew it and probably the biggest one is their decision not to translate all the “behold’s.” When there word “behold” or “look” appears, they just leave it out. That is what happened in verse 1. The first word is “behold.”

3:1 Behold! how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! 

That word “behold” is a call to take a heart-moving look at a particular truth. When the Bible writers tell you to behold something they want you to fix your gaze on it and don’t look away until you really see it. And you know you can really see it when it stirs your heart and touches your affections. If you are still unmoved by it, then you have not beheld it yet and you need to keep looking.
If the realization that you are a child of God passes in one ear and out the other and leaves your heart unmoved, there is a blindness that needs to be remedied. Spurgeon: It is said that when one of the learned heathens was translating this, he stopped and said, "No; it cannot be; let it be written 'Subjects,' not 'Sons.' ″ It almost sounds like blasphemy the first time you hear it. It is so undeserved. Even if you weren’t a sinner it would be undeserved! Even if you were perfect and never sinned a single time. That would make you the world’s greatest servant. But a son? The angels don’t sin, but they are not children of God.

Hebrews 1:5 To which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son?

They are not the heirs – just we are. Spurgeon went on to say, "What a high relationship is that of a son to his father! What privileges a son has from his father! What liberties a son may take with his father! And oh! what obedience the son owes to his father, and what love the father feels towards the son! But all that, and more than that, we now have through Christ. "Behold!" ye angels! stop, ye seraphs! Here is a thing more wonderful than heaven with its walls of jasper. Behold, universe! Open thine eyes, O world. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”
So let’s do that. Let’s slow down and look at the words in this verse one at a time so we can behold this glorious truth.
Love
First, the word love. He could have said, “Behold, how great the gift the Lord has lavished upon us.” Or, “Behold, how great the mercy” or “generosity” or “honor.” And all that would be true, but those are not the most important aspects. The most important thing is not that God gave a gift to us or that He honored us. The most amazing thing is that He made us His own offspring because of love. 
A person that doesn’t really like you could pin a medal on your chest and honor you. A person who does not care about you at all could give a gift to you. What is amazing is God loved us.
Lavished
“But that doesn’t make sense. How could God look down at me as an unbeliever before I was saved – an enemy of the cross, a sinner who constantly blasphemes His name, an ugly, putrid, rebellious, wicked object of His wrath; and love what He sees? Love delights in its object. Love involves enjoyment and pleasure. If God loves me that means He really likes me. How could God look down at an enemy and really like him? How could He look down on a rebellious sinner and take delight in what He sees?”
Take a look at that word lavished. The word means “given.” This is the only place in the New Testament where love is said to be given. It was not an attraction that came from our attractiveness. It was a shocking, inexplicable, decision God made to delight in us.
You see, one way that God is very different from us is in that He is able to command His own love.

Psalm 42:8 By day the LORD commands his love, at night his song is with me

God can order His own love around. He can simply decide to take delight in a person and it is done.
God did not love us because of something inherently delightful in us. It was a gift. Have you ever tried to make someone love you and failed? Or wished that someone would love you, but it didn’t happen? What if God didn’t like you? What would you do to get Him to change? There would be absolutely nothing you could do. And He would be perfectly just and righteous to never love you in this way. But He decided to.
Called
The most wonderful truth in this whole verse is not even stated – it is implied. Notice the passive voice of the word “called.” We are called children of God – by whom? Who is calling us that? The world? No – this is what they call a divine passive. We are called children by God Himself.
That is the best thing in this whole verse. If we took the title upon ourselves (as many people do) it would mean nothing. If someone else gave us that title it would mean nothing. But it is God who calls us that. And He does so without shame or embarrassment.
Many times we have been ashamed of Him – too embarrassed to be identified with Him – too timid to speak up for Him. But He is never like that with you.

Hebrews 11:16 Instead, they were longing for a better country-- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God

And Hebrews 2:11 says Jesus is not ashamed to be called our Brother! And Romans 8:16 says the Spirit testifies that we are God’s children too. The whole Trinity is energized to proclaim that we are children of God!
We have no cause to ever be ashamed of the most glorious being in existence, and yet we sometimes are. He has every reason to be ashamed to be associated with us, and yet He proclaims to the whole world in His Word that we are His beloved children.
You might think, “But if God associates Himself with us, won’t that dishonor His name when we sin?” Yes, it does. And yet God is willing to allow His name to be temporarily dishonored by us.
How great
What about the phrase how great? That Greek word originally meant “from what country?” It means what kind of love is this? What strange, foreign country does this kind of love come from, because it certainly does not come from around here!
Compare this love to all other loves. What is the sweetest, most delightful, most satisfying love you have ever experienced? This is better. There is something unique about the love a little child has for his parents. It is affection mixed with trust.
Children
And that brings us to the word children. Remember when you were little, in the grocery store, your mom turned the corner with the cart, all the sudden you look both ways and don’t see her. And suddenly every cell in your body explodes with panic – that feeling of abandonment and aloneness and helplessness? You have one desire and one desire only at that moment – your parents. At age three you don’t know much but you do know that being three and not having parents would be the most horrible thing you could imagine. There are not many longings or desires in life more intense than the desire for your parents as a little child.
Paul talks a lot about the fact that we are sons of God. The term “son” emphasizes legal status – the one who gets the inheritance. And that is a wonderful doctrine indeed. But John uses the word children. Adoption emphasizes legal standing, children of God emphasizes natural family relation. We are not just adopted, we have His DNA.

1 …And that is what we are! 

He gives us not only His name, but also His nature.
Benefits
Think about the benefits you receive from being the child of God.

Access
What about access to God? Nothing is greater in life than access to the presence of God and that is promised only to His children. The most important, powerful people in the world have to make an appointment if they want to see the President of the United States. But the President’s little children can come into his room and jump up into his bed in the morning and lie down with him. You can imagine in heaven someday, the Archangel Michael requesting an audience with the Lord - meanwhile you just come running in the door and come right up to Him like a child running to His father.
We will tremble in awe and bow just as low as the angels in worship and fear and awe, but we will also have the privileges and closeness of His own children. And our love will eclipse theirs, because we will love Him both as our King and as our Father.

Chastisement
Another benefit is chastisement. According to Hebrews 12:5-7 all the discipline we receive from God is redemptive – never just punitive. He never just punishes us like He does unbelievers when they sin. He promises that every ounce of the pain we suffer from His rod will benefit us and produce a harvest of righteousness. 

What sorrow compares to this?
What sorrow do you have in your heart that compares with this joy? If you lose a $5 bill and the same day win the lottery, are you going to be more upset about losing the $5 than you are happy about winning the millions? God has made you His child! What sorrow do you have going on right now that is bigger than that? Your marriage is hard? Your finances are tight? A health problem? A relationship problem? What are we saying to God when lesser things have a greater impact on our emotions then the privilege of sonship? How can we ever complain or grumble or worry? Are His riches and wonders and grace not enough for us?

My Dad made that
I used to work with someone who would bring up God every time someone would make a comment about the creation.. Someone would say, “Wow! Look at that mountain. That is awesome!” And she would say, “Oh, My Dad made that. You like that?”
“That sunset is spectacular!”
“Oh, thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“Well, yeah – My Father made it.”
Think about this: your Father is the Author of life. He is the Architect of the Universe. Your Father is the Source of all beauty. Your Dad is worshipped by the angels, whom He created. Your Father will be the one with the gavel on Judgment Day. The one who takes care of you is the King of kings, whose presence makes the foundations of the earth tremble. The one who guides you is the Light of the world. The one who feeds you is the Bread of life. God is your Father!
(And if you had a bad father then just realize that everything about your earthly father that disappointed you - the reason those things bother you is because they are unlike your Father in heaven.)
The world’s opinion is wrong
And if the people in the world try to make you out to be just like them, don’t fall for it. That is the point of the last line in the verse.

1 …The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 

They do not recognize us as anything special. They think we are just like them. They think all religions are the same and all people are the same. They think everyone is fundamentally good on the inside, and we are all seeking essentially the same thing – just in different ways. You take your path and I take my path, but it doesn’t matter; all roads lead to heaven.
Or another tactic is they will point to our sin and say, “See, you are all a bunch of hypocrites. There is no difference between you and anyone else. You are not righteous. You don’t have any special access to God beyond what we have.” They do not know us. They are completely ignorant about the most important parts of who we are. And that should come as no surprise to you, because they did not recognize Him either. So do not be intimidated or dismayed by them. If they see God in human flesh and conclude He is from the devil and they nail Him to a cross, why do you care about what they think? They have proven themselves the most inept judges imaginable. Never let the world or their ignorant theories diminish any of your joy over who you are.

Verse 2 Future Hope

John wants you to have unbounded joy over your current status as a child of God. But now, in verse 2, he wants to pile hope on top of joy.
What we will be has not yet been made known
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. 

Everything we just talked about is wonderful, but what is coming is better – better than a parent-child relationship. We will still be His children forever. In fact, some aspects of our adoption are still future (Ro.8:23). But on that Day, when we see Him face to face, our relationship with God then will be closer and more wonderful even than a parent-child relationship. Even closer and more wonderful than a husband-wife relationship.
“What kind of relationship is closer and more wonderful than that? What could there possibly be that would be greater than being His child or His Bride?” We don’t know – it isn’t revealed. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says, “Don’t even bother asking that question. Your body in heaven will be as different from your current body as a tree is from a seed” (1 Cor.15:35-38). And here John is telling us the same is true about your relationship to God. You cannot even begin to imagine what the tree is going to look like by examining the seed, so don’t even try.
We will be like Him 
We do know one thing about it, however. We know it will have something to do with greater resemblance.

2 … what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 

The greatest joy will be appreciating and reflecting God’s attributes
When people try to imagine heaven they usually try to think of what would be the most enjoyable circumstances possible. What is that? What circumstances would generate the greatest possible enjoyment? The answer is, the greatest possible enjoyment is without question that which God enjoys the most, right? He can have or do anything He wants – there is nothing that restricts or inhibits Him from having whatever He most desires, and He has perfect desires. So whatever God enjoys most is for sure the most enjoyable thing there is or could possibly be. And what God enjoys most is His own glory – His attributes.
He loves having those attributes, and He loves putting them on display for others to enjoy. And so the greatest enjoyment possible for us will be twofold: To see and experience that glory and those attributes firsthand without anything hindering your ability to appreciate them, and to actually have them yourself. To see God and to be like God. That is what will be the greatest, most enjoyable thing about heaven – increased ability to enjoy God because of how much more like Him we will be.
So our relationship with God then will be something greater than a parent-child relationship. It will be something greater than we can conceive of now. And we do not know what that is yet, but we do know that it will involve us becoming like Him. We won’t ever become gods. He will forever remain the Creator and we will forever remain finite creatures. But our character will be transformed to be like His. And John tells us in verse 2 how that will happen.
For we will see Him
2. …We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 

On that day we will have a much clearer view of God than we have now.

1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. 

So exactly what is it that will we see? And how will seeing that transform us? Is it that you are going to look at the physical face of Jesus and be so amazed at the shape of His nose and the color of His eyes and the style of His hair that it will transform your heart? What will we see that will have such a transforming effect on us?
I can tell you exactly what you will see on that day. You will see His attributes. An attribute is anything that is true about God. Some examples of His attributes are His power and goodness and wisdom and grace and generosity and justice and wrath and eternality and His delight in His children and His interest in our prayers and His compassion, the perfect balance of wrath and mercy and the ideal combination of majesty and gentleness, and hundreds of others.
That is what He is like now and that is what He will be like then and forever. And seeing that means not only being able to observe it, but also to appreciate it and experience it. Right now you know that Jesus Christ is powerful, but you know that only by faith – your firsthand experience of it is sketchy. It may not cause you to want to shout and dance for joy right now because your heart is blind to what is so wonderful about it.
Imagine a friend installed something in your house that was a new invention of his. It is called an autocleaner, and you have only a vague idea of what it is. Finally, after a few months he starts to suspect that you don’t really appreciate what this invention really is, so he comes over to your house to show you what it can do. You are embarrassed when he shows up, because your house is a huge mess. He says, “That’s the beauty of this invention – just press that button.” So you press the button, and within two minutes the house is immaculate. Everything is put away where it belongs, dishes are done, laundry is put away, everything’s dusted, swept, mopped, vacuumed – everything. Now you are very happy about this gift. Before it didn’t make you all that happy because you were blind to what an autocleaner really was. But now that your eyes have been opened to what is so wonderful about it, it has an effect on your heart and how much joy you have and how delighted you are by this thing.
That is exactly how it will be on the day that your eyes are opened to really see what is so wonderful about the attributes of Jesus Christ. Instead of seeing firsthand what “autocleaner” really means, you will see firsthand what “Savior” really means. And “King” and “Lord” and “Father” and “Friend” and “Master” and “Eternal One” and “All-powerful One” and “Shepherd” and “Hearer of our prayers” and “Judge” and “Advocate” and “Comforter” and a thousand other attributes. And at that moment you will be orders of magnitude happier than you have ever been before.

How that happiness transforms you
Now, you might think, “I can see how that would make me happy, but how will it transform me morally?” The reason it will transform you morally is because when you see firsthand how wonderful God’s righteousness is, and the eyes of your heart are opened so that you can appreciate what is so delightful about it, sin will have no pull on your heart at all. When you set some corrupted, temporary, shallow pleasure alongside some spectacular, breathtaking, infinite, eternal pleasure you only desire the corrupted, shallow one if you are blind to the spectacular, breathtaking one. But once you see the breathtaking one for what it is you have zero desire for the corrupted one.
[By the way – that is why we are studying the attributes of God on Thursday nights. No matter what spiritual problem or goal you have in your life right now, the solution is greater appreciation of God’s attributes. And that comes when you experience those attributes personally through fellowship with God. And that is what we are learning how to do in that study.]
So the whole process of fighting against sin in this life is a process of having our eyes opened wider to what is so great about the attributes of God. That is how you get victory over every sin. And so on that Day when you see Him as He is – when the blinders are ripped away and you are able to see firsthand and personally experience…
His patience and 
sovereignty and 
knowledge and 
tenderness and 
generosity and 
transcendence and 
nearness and 
food-likeness and 
all the rest – when you see all that in such a way as to be able to appreciate what is so absolutely, breath-takingly marvelous about those things, it will cause heart-transforming, righteousness-producing, sin-dwarfing, God-glorifying joy in your heart that is beyond anything you have ever experienced.

Verse 3: Present Purification
So seeing God will purify us then, and our looking forward to that purifies us now.

3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. 

So how does that work? How does hope purify you?
Self-purification
Before we answer that let’s take notice of the fact that this passage is definitely talking about self-purification. Some people teach that grace means you put forth no effort. They say if you do anything, then that is works, not grace. That is called Keswick theology, and it runs into a real snag in passages like this. It is a self-refuting system because you have to put forth effort to read their books.
In the Old Testament there were certain rituals that were prescribed by God for the people to make themselves ritually clean before entering His presence. By doing those rituals the people were not generating their own purity. They were simply responding to the way God desired to purify them. And it is the same for us. We are not the source of the transforming power, but our will and actions are involved.
Hope causes purification
The definition of hope
So our hope causes purification. And to understand how that works we need to make sure we understand what hope is. In popular usage today the word hope means wish. “I hope my candidate wins the election” or “I hope it doesn’t rain today.” It is just a wish that says nothing about the likelihood that things will turn out that way.
That is not the way the word is used in Scripture. The biblical term hope refers to the happiness that you have now because of some upcoming blessing that you are so sure is going to happen that you are already happy about it. It is happiness borrowed from tomorrow. It is the opposite of worry. Worry is when you decide to suffer tomorrow’s pain today. Hope is when you enjoy some of tomorrow’s joy today. If you are in a good mood on Friday because Saturday you leave for the vacation of a lifetime – your good mood on Friday is hope. You are not even on vacation yet, but you are so sure it is going to happen, and you are so sure you are going to like it that you are already feeling joy and happiness. Hope is a feeling of happiness and well-being and delight that comes from anticipating some future blessing. And it does not exist unless your soul is convinced of two things: That this blessing will indeed happen and that it will indeed be enjoyable. 
Hope is an essential component of life. Your heart is constantly scanning the horizon of the future to look for upcoming blessings. And each good thing that shows up on the radar gives you a little injection of joy in the present. And it is those injections of joy are what keep you going through life.
Once in a while, your radar scans the future and sees no sign of anything good. There is nothing to look forward to, and the result is depression. That is why when you are depressed not even pleasant things in the present can cheer you up. If there is no joy from anticipated things in the future, enjoyment in the present isn’t enough to sustain real joy. Hope is a major part of what keeps us going in life. It gives you strength and motivation and courage and joy.
But the quality of your strength and motivation and courage and joy depends upon the quality of your hope. If all my hope comes from looking forward to a paycheck and the weekend, that is a shallow hope so the result will be very little strength, weak motivation and courage, and tepid joy. But if there are too many bumps in the road my joy will be out the window.
Now, if the thing I am looking forward to is a little bigger – a big vacation, or an exciting new job, or my wedding day, or the birth of a child - those things are bigger hopes, and so they provide bigger doses of hope. If one of those things is coming up in a few days it will take a lot bigger trial to put me in a bad mood or cause me to feel overwhelmed or discouraged. Although - some trials are so big that they will get you down even if you have those big hopes. Getting diagnosed with terminal cancer, losing a child, getting a divorce – things like that can get a person down even a few days before some really wonderful event.
There is only one hope great enough to supply joy and strength and motivation and courage that are untouchable by any trial or any suffering of any magnitude. And that is the hope that Peter talked about in… 

1 Peter 1:13 Therefore, having prepared your minds for action … set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

When you are able hope in the grace that you will receive at the Second Coming that hope is the most powerful hope there is. It produces the deepest joy and the most unassailable strength. Not even the worst imaginable suffering in this world can bring you down when the source of your joy is the anticipation of the Second Coming. And the more you learn about how wonderful that Day is going to be, and the more confident you are that it will actually happen, and the more you fix your heart on thinking about it; the more powerful and untouchable your joy will become.

How hope purifies
Now, back to John’s statement in verse 3.

3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. 

If you get your strength and courage and motivation and joy in life from looking forward to seeing Christ as He is- seeing His kindness and power and beauty and faithfulness and wisdom and compassion and holiness and all the rest of His countless attributes; when seeing that firsthand and being transformed by it is your hope in life, then that means your heart takes delight in those things. And if that is the case you are going to strive to live that way.
Just take one attribute – for example, kindness. If the source of your joy in life is looking forward to seeing the Lord’s kindness firsthand and being transformed by that so that you are kind - if that is your hope in life, then your affections are going to hold kindness in the highest regard. Your heart will look at the virtue of kindness and think, “That is beautiful. I love that. Kindness is delightful and good and pleasing and desirable and I want it.” And you will do all you can to obtain that virtue. 
I think it is probably safe to say that one reason why we don’t have greater hope in the Second Coming is because we think of it in such vague, general terms. We do not think through what it will be like to see Him. We imagine some spectacular fireworks in the sky or some bright light or maybe a comforting smile or whatever, and that is about as far as our thinking goes. And that is not enough to generate hope. We need to contemplate exactly what it is we are going to see and experience on that day when we see Him. And what we will see will be His attributes.
When God showed His glory to Moses in Exodus 34 what He showed him was His attributes.

Exodus 33:18-23 Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory." 

34:6-7 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished…

When David saw God in the Temple what did he see?

Psalms 63:2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory

When David saw God what he saw was God’s attributes – His power and glory.
Jesus said in John 14:9 Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. The people who saw Jesus saw the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 4:6 [God has] us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

The people who saw Jesus saw love and compassion and wisdom and wrath and tenderness and forgiveness, etc.
Now, in each of those cases the full display of the glory of God was veiled, so it could be seen by sinful men. And what we will behold at the Second Coming will be far greater. But it won’t be fundamentally different. What we will see will be the display of His marvelous attributes.
If seeing God on that day were just some unimaginable spectacle that is completely different from anything you have ever seen, then it would be hard to gain much hope from it. You cannot get much joy from anticipating some unknown abstraction that is unlike anything you can imagine. But God has given us enough experiences of beauty in this world so that we can get joy from anticipating beholding beauty more beautiful than any beauty we have ever seen. He has given us enough experiences of faithfulness that we can imagine greater faithfulness. We have experienced enough power that we can look forward to far greater power. If you want the anticipation of the Second Coming to bring hope into your heart, learn to love the experience of the attributes of God. (Again – that is the purpose of what we are doing on Thursday nights.)

Future hope dictates present affections
John goes on to talk about the fact that no one who continues in unrepentant sin is in this category. That is because hoping in seeing Him and unrepentant sin are by definition mutually exclusive. If someone says, “My hope is to behold the glory of God and be transformed by it into the image of Christ,” but then he turns around and says, “That’s my hope for the future, but right now I want to do the opposite of that and enjoy sin,” he is kidding himself.
If you are in Colorado and you claim your great hope is to get to California, but you just keep driving east – and you say, “For now I’m driving east. But what gives me joy is the thought of being in the West. And once I arrive in California, then I’ll take delight in being out West” that does not make any sense. If a soldier says, “What gives me joy in life – and the source of my motivation and courage and strength, is the prospect of the United States winning this war. For now I want to fight on the enemy’s side and fight against the US. But what really gives me joy is the prospect of the US winning.” That is nonsense. If you really do receive joy from your anticipation of something, then you are not going to choose a course that leads in the opposite direction.

Conclusion
The most certain of all realities is the fact that someday the Lord Jesus Christ will return in power and great glory. It is going to happen. It is as certain as your very existence. And when He comes, He will transform you with an act of infinite power. Almighty God will act upon you with an action of power and love greater than all of the divine power that holds the oceans in place.
•	Power greater than that which keeps the galaxies spinning.
•	Power greater than that which gives life to all creatures.
•	This corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality. 
•	This natural body of weakness will become a spiritual body of power.
•	This dishonorable flesh will give way to glory and honor.
You will stand before His judgment seat and every circumstance of your life will be dealt with. Injustices will be made right. Lies about you will be corrected. All of His promises to you will be fulfilled. Rewards will be heaped upon you – rewards specially tailored to be delightful to your particular soul.
All your sins – sins of your youth, secret sins, rebellion, disobedience - all will be dealt with. God will require an accounting, all will be judged, and after the judgment, acquittal! And after acquittal, peace and rest and joy and life and hope and singing and shouting and dancing for joy with a capacity for enjoyment of God and happiness infinitely beyond anything ever imagined in this life.

1 John 3:1 Behold! What on earth kind of love has the Father lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 

2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.

What if you are not a child of God?

John 1:11-12 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

Place your faith and all your hope in Him, and you will be born again.

Benediction: Heb.6:18-20 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf.

Overcoming Evil: Part 8 Cosmic Treason  3:4-8 

Summary: Our besetting sins are hard to defeat because they don’t seem evil – partly because of a wrong conception of what makes something evil. It has nothing to do with whether it hurts people or how accepted it is. Sin is lawlessness (rebellion/treason)! That is why it is evil. Satan is the original sinner and is devoted to sin. Jesus appeared to destroy that work. It is all-out war, and there is no middle ground. Praise God for destroying Satan’s work in our lives!

Introduction: Why is overcoming sin so hard?
Faulty definitions of sin
Review
Sin is lawlessness!
Tautology?
The meaning of lawlessness (it’s a war!)
Satan’s mission
The meaning of “works”
Satan’s works
Jesus’ Mission
Jesus came to fight against sin (v.5)
No Middle ground
Treason!
Ultimate good vs. evil
War illustration
Our Deliverer!

3:4 Everyone doing sin also does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one remaining in him sins. Everyone who sins has neither seen him nor known him. 
7 Dear children, do not be led astray. The one doing righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. 8 The one doing sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works. 9 All those having been born of God do not sin, because His seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Everyone who does not do righteousness is not from God; nor is anyone not loving his brother. 

Introduction: Why is overcoming sin so hard?
There are certain sins in your life that are especially hard for you to overcome. You do fine in other areas, but for some reason those particular sins just seem impossible for you to overcome. Why? Other people don’t seem to have as much trouble as you do in those areas – why is it so hard for you? One reason for that has to do with the way we think about sin.
If you want to grow a church really fast, one almost sure-fire way to do it is to minimize sin. Do not come right out and so it is OK to sin, but just treat sin as though it were no big deal. Make it so people living in unrepentant sin can come to your church and be made to feel like everything is OK between them and God. Do that and you will run out of parking in a matter of weeks. 
We grieve over that trend in unfaithful churches of taking sin lightly. But what should cause us to grieve even more is the fact that we are guilty of something very similar. It is one of the main reasons why we struggle with the particular sins we struggle with. At the moment of temptation our souls are not convinced that this particular sin is really all that bad. We tell ourselves all day long that it is evil and wicked and vile, but it seems no matter how much we say that to ourselves, at the moment of temptation the soul just is not convinced.
Faulty definitions of sin
The Apostle John is going to help us in our fight against sin in this passage by teaching us what sin is, and what makes it bad. He is going to show us what it is that makes sin evil, and when we see that it will help us fight against those sins that have been such a struggle for us.
The world is hopelessly confused on this point. They have no idea what makes sin sin. If naturalistic evolution is true, then Hitler was right - the only meaningful standard for good and evil would be that which hinders or does not hinder evolution. And so virtue means killing off the weak people so they don’t pollute the gene pool. But most people do not accept that even though they claim to believe in evolution.
And so if you press them for a definition of evil usually they say, “Evil is whatever hurts people.” That is why they laugh at God’s laws that prohibit what they think are “victimless crimes.” They say, “If I do this in the privacy of my own bedroom, who’s it going to hurt? There is no victim, and therefore it isn’t evil. And if it is evil, it is not very evil – certainly not as evil as those crimes that really do hurt people.”
It is not very hard to show how inadequate that definition is, because not all pain is evil. We pay surgeons thousands of dollars to cut us open with a knife. Surgery hurts, and yet surgeons who hurt us in order to repair what is wrong in our bodies are not considered evil – they are heroes.
If there is a vicious, murderous rapist running lose in your neighborhood, and he is just about to kidnap your daughter, and right when he is just a couple feet away from grabbing her a police officer tackles him to the ground and puts handcuffs on him and locks him up in prison, that hurts the man and creates all kinds of hardships for the man and may not be in that man’s best interests; and yet we don’t say that police officer is evil – we call him a hero. 
One woman in our congregation is currently training for an ironman triathlon, where you swim 2.4 miles, then bike 112 miles, and run a marathon (26 miles) all in one race. Here you have a woman who is inflicting pain on herself. Is that evil? No. We admire disciplined athletes who can do that sort of thing.
So it just does not work to define evil as that which hurts people. And so if you shoot down that definition then usually the only other one they can think of is this: “Evil is whatever the society agrees upon as being evil. When the whole culture agrees something is bad, that makes it bad. And when they all say something is good, then it’s good.”
That theory is even flimsier than the other one. By that theory, the slavery system in America used to be morally good. When most of the people agreed it was good, and the Supreme Court said it was good, that made it good. And when foot binding was accepted in China, that means it was morally good. And when human sacrifice or bride burning or infanticide are accepted in some culture, those things become morally good. And when most Germans agreed with Hitler, then Hitler was virtuous. The “popular vote” method of determining virtue fails because there is no escaping the fact that entire cultures can be immoral. So the world’s definitions of good and evil fall apart.
Now, as Christians we look at all that and shake our heads and think, How can people in the world be so foolish? And yet, that very foolishness finds its way into our hearts much more than we care to admit. The last time you caved in to some sin, and part of the rationalization in your heart was, “This isn’t going to hurt anybody,” or “Most people wouldn’t think there is anything wrong with this – lots of people struggle with this” – when you think that way you are walking in the same darkness as the world when it comes to understanding the definition of sin and what it is that makes sin a bad thing.
Review
One of the main reasons why John wrote this book was to help us conquer sin.

1 John 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. 

The entire book helps us with that, and especially the section starting with 2:12. He began by showing us that we have the advantage over Satan. Then he said, “Don’t give up that advantage by falling in love with the enemy.” Don’t love the things in the world. Then he started presenting us with a picture of the end time – the big war between Christ and the anti-Christs. And the way we stay on the right side of that war is by letting His Word remain in us.
Then last week John helped us in our fight against sin by teaching us about hope. We saw in verses 2-3 that the great hope of the Christian is that Day when we see the Lord face to face and are transformed. That is the greatest hope there is. Whatever you have imagined to be the most magnificent hope possible – the most pleasurable, delightful, enjoyable heaven you can imagine – nothing anyone could ever conceive of would be as enjoyable or delightful or thrilling as seeing the attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ with unhindered ability to appreciate what is wonderful about them. On that day when you see and experience His love it will fill you with a sensation a million times more wonderful than the best experience of love you have ever had on earth. When you see His power on that Day you will experience awe and wonder beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. When you experience Him as your refuge you will feel a sensation of safety and well-being more delightful than anything you have ever felt. When you behold His wisdom it will interest you more than anything has ever interested you. And the same is true for all of His hundreds of attributes. Seeing them will be enough to make you happy forever.
And when we make that our great hope it purifies us from sin even now. We do not just fight against sin because sin is a no-no. We fight against it because if the hope of our lives is to behold and experience what God is like, then obviously we are going to want to behold and experience that now as well.
So how do you defeat sin? You understand your advantage, you fight against falling in love with the world, you let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, and you set your hope on the Day when you will see Him as He is. That brings us up to today’s text. Now John is going to give us a fifth strategy. In this text we are going to see how having a correct understanding of what sin actually is and what makes it evil is one of the most important keys to overcoming sin. This text will help you see the evil of those sins that just do not seem evil to you.

Sin is lawlessness! 

4 Everyone doing sin also does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 
Tautology?
“You’re kidding me. That’s suppose to help me? Sin is lawlessness?” Isn’t that a tautology – like saying, “A house is a house,” or, “A single man is a bachelor”? Sin and lawlessness are used as synonyms in Scripture - what is the point of telling us that sin is lawlessness? Does John expect that someone is going to read that and think, Oh – If something is just sin I would have just gone ahead thinking it was no big deal, but if it turns out it’s lawlessness, well, then I’m not going to do it? How does knowing that sin is lawlessness help me overcome sin?
The meaning of lawlessness (it’s a war!)
The answer to that question becomes evident as you look into the meaning of the word lawlessness. Sometimes the word is used almost as a synonym for sin. But many times it is used to refer not to sin in general, but specifically to rebellion against God, who is the Lawgiver. It refers to a hostility against God, and a siding with Satan against God. That is why the antichrist is called the man of lawlessness. It is not just that he commits sin. He is the man of lawlessness in that he is on the devil’s side in the war between God and Satan. So when you see the word “lawlessness” in an end-time context then you can usually be assured that this is the way it is being used. And this section of John is very much an end-times passage. In 2:28 John talked about the Second Coming. In 3:2 he talked about Jesus’ appearing and our seeing Him as He is and being transformed. And earlier in chapter 2 he spoke at length about the fact that we know it is the last days because of the arrival of the antichrists.
So John has been talking about the war between Christ and those who oppose Him, and then here uses a word that often refers to the rebellion of those who oppose God in the end times. And on top of that is another little clue. In the Greek there is a definite article in front of the word “lawlessness.” So it literally says, “Sin is the lawlessness.” Not just lawlessness in general, but specifically the lawlessness – the end-times Satanic rebellion against God.
So the point here is that the thing that makes sin evil is the fact that it is rebellion and treason against God. It is siding with Satan. We will have success in our fight against sin in our lives when we learn what it is that makes something virtuous or evil. What makes something evil is whether it is for or against God – period. And the measure of how serious a sin is is how much God hates it – period. So John helps us to learn how to see the evil of our sin by showing us that when we sin it is not just that we slipped up, made a mistake, failed to have enough strength, etc. When we sin we join forces with the supreme enemy of God – Satan himself.

Satan’s mission
The meaning of “works”
Now let’s think through what that means. Skip down for a moment to verse 8.

8 …The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works.

John uses the word “works” in the sense of a mission in life.

John 4:34 "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
John 17:4 I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Jesus came into this world with a mission, given to Him by the Father. Jesus’ mission in life was called His works. And I am convinced John is using the word works in the same sense here – to refer to the Devil’s mission in life. The reason the Son of God came into this world was to destroy the Devil’s life work – to oppose the Devil in carrying out his evil mission in life.
So the picture is not of random skirmishes from time to time. This is a long-term, full-scale war. 
Satan’s works
If you want to get a handle on what Satan’s works are, you get a good idea just from the titles Scripture gives him. The devil’s name is “Satan” which is the Hebrew word for enemy. And beyond his name, he is called a number of other things. He is called “the devil,” which means “the slanderer.” He is called the tempter (Mt.4:5; 1 Thes.3:5), the evil One (Mt.13:19,38; 1 Jn.2:13-14; 3:12, 5:18); the deceiver (Rev.12:9); the thief (Jn.10:10); the father of lies (Jn.8:44); murderer (Jn.8:44); ruler of the authority of the air (Eph.2:2), the god of this age (2 Co.4:4), and the ruler of this world (Jn.12:31). Those names make it clear what Satan’s works are. He does all those things. Jesus said he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. (Jn.10:10)

8 The one doing sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The fact that Satan has been sinning from the beginning shows that he is the originator and father of sin. That is why John can say anyone carrying out sin is of the devil. Satan invented sin, and he is the one using it to carry out his purposes. In Genesis 1-4 God created everything good, then the serpent tempted Eve, leading to the fall. And that led to the first murder and from then until now it has been all out war between Satan and God.
In Mathew 13:24-30 Jesus told a parable about a farmer whose enemy comes and actually sows weed seeds throughout all his fields. If you have ever been around a farm you know that is not just a prank. That would destroy that farmer’s income for the entire year. And in verse 39 Jesus says the enemy who sows [the weeds] is the devil. The Farmer is God. The point of that is that the devil’s goal is to ruin the work of God. That is his mission in life. In Acts 13:10 we read that he is the enemy of everything that is right.
His one goal is to destroy the work of God. And he does that mainly by attacking the Church. He knows that it is through the Church that God has chosen to do His work on earth. And so his main attack is against us. He fights us in numerous ways.
5)	Holding unbelievers captive
He does all he can to prevent unbelievers from becoming saved. He blinds their minds so they cannot understand the gospel (2 Cor.4:4), and then he snatches the gospel right out of their heart like a bird picking up seed off a hardened path.
6)	Temptation
He works to entice those of us who are saved to sin. He tries to fill our hearts, like he did with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. He puts thoughts into our heads that make sin seem desirable. He provides us with rationalizations to make sin seem OK. He turns our attention toward the pleasure connected with sin. He clouds our thinking about the truth. He points our desires in the direction of evil.
7)	Deceit 
He appears as an angel of light (2 Cor.11:14), and comes up with doctrines (1 Tim.4:1) and deep secrets (Rev.2:24) that seem so good and right and appealing to us. He deceives us into thinking the hunger and thirst pangs in our souls are really hunger and thirst for earthly pleasures instead of for the presence of God. He tricks us and outwits us and sets traps for us with his schemes (1 Tim.3:7, Eph.6:11, 2 Tim.2:11). He tries to gain a place in your heart by tricking you into staying angry or holding a grudge (Eph.4:27). And he does all he can to take you captive to do his will.
8)	Unbelief 
He attacks our faith. He introduces doubts into our minds, or just distracts us so we don’t remember to think about God’s promises. 
9)	Discouragement 
He is the accuser, and he does all he can to destroy us with our own guilt.
10)	Opposition 
As we seek to serve God in the work of the kingdom Satan hinders us. Everything we try to do he tries to prevent. 

1Thessalonians 2:18 For we wanted to come to you … but Satan stopped us.

What we try to do he works to prevent, and when we do accomplish something he tries to hit the “undo” button on it. In 1 Thessalonians 3:5 Paul was afraid that all his work with the Thessalonians would be rendered useless because of the tempter. 
11)	Suffering 
He incites persecution (Rev.2:10), and he uses the regular trials of life to sift us like wheat (Lk.22:31). He inflicts pain and suffering upon us and then tries to use that to weaken our faith or corrupt our love for God through a misinterpretation of the suffering (2 Cor.12:7).
And the one who does all this is incredibly powerful. He is the ruler of the spiritual powers, authorities and demons. And all non-Christians – every last one of them is in his lap doing his work. So he organizes all the demons and unbelievers to carry out his plans. Beyond that he has supernatural power. 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says he can even do miracles and signs and wonders if it suits his purposes. 

Jude 1:9 But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"

Satan is an incredibly powerful adversary.

Jesus’ Mission 
Jesus came to fight against sin (v.5)
That is not exhaustive, but it is a summary of the devil’s works. And this text says Jesus came to destroy all that.

4 …sin is lawlessness 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away sins. And in him is no sin. 

This is all-out war. Satan pours all his vast resources into causing and Jesus came to take away sin.
There is some discussion about whether this is talking about taking away the guilt of our sin through forgiveness or taking away sins themselves through sanctification – causing us to sin less. I think it is referring to both. Christ came to fight against sin from top to bottom – the actions themselves as well as the guilt and penalty.
The point is that He is totally against sin. And there is no sin in Him. He fights against sin and sin is antithetical to His very nature.
When they ask the Miss America contestants about their goals, they always say they want to bring world peace or end hunger, etc. And we chuckle at that because not even the most resourceful Miss America winner have ever had anywhere near the power or influence required to end war or world hunger – or to even make a dent in those things. But they say that not because they actually have the power to pull it off, but because they want us to be impressed with how wonderful and lofty their intensions and desires are. But are those really lofty goals?
There was a man who actually did have enough power to do all that. Jesus Christ, with one word from His mouth, could have eliminated all war, hunger, disease, suffering, and death everywhere in the world. (In fact the Day is coming when He will do just that.) But if He was in an interview and they asked Him what His loftiest goals are, none of those things would be on the list. Jesus had a much higher, much loftier mission than eliminating suffering and death. What Jesus came into this world to eliminate was sin. If you eliminate sin, in doing so you also eliminate suffering and death. But if all you do is eliminate suffering and death and you do nothing about evil, you have accomplished nothing. So fighting against sin is not a side issue for Jesus Christ; it is the reason He came into this world.

No Middle ground 
And so throughout this text John does everything he can to make as clear a distinction as possible between the two sides. There is absolutely no middle ground.

7 Dear children, do not be led astray. The one doing righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. 8 The one doing sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works.

You are on Jesus’ side or the devil’s side – there is no neutral in this war. If you are doing righteousness, you are at Jesus’ side destroying the devil’s work. And if you are not doing righteousness then you are at the devil’s side fighting against Jesus’ work. And those are the only two possibilities – either you are carrying out righteousness or you are not. In Matthew 16:23 we find that any time you do not have in mind the purposes of God, you are acting on Satan’s behalf.., which means that every moment of every day you are either accomplishing God’s purposes or Satan’s. When Peter did not have in mind the purposes of God Jesus called him Satan.
So every time you sin you are fighting against Jesus. When someone close to you does something that is irritating, and you hold it against them instead of forgiving, you are fighting against Jesus Christ. When you fail to do what you know God wants you to do as a husband or as a wife, you are fighting against Jesus Christ. When you fudge the truth so people won’t look down on you or so someone will be impressed with you, or to save a little money – you are fighting right along Satan’s side against the Holy One. When you entertain evil thoughts – resentment, anger, prideful thoughts, selfish thoughts, lust, etc; you are joining Satan’s army and taking up arms against the Lord Jesus Christ.
Treason!
So what is it that makes sin so bad? The fact that it hurts people? No. The fact that society agrees it is bad? No. The fact that it harms you? No. The consequences? No. What makes it bad is the fact that it is cosmic treason in the most important war there is.
When we think armed robbery is especially sinful because it hurts people, but secret pride in the heart is not as serious because it does not harm anybody, that is a man-centered perspective. Sin is not sin because of its effect on man. What makes it evil is the fact that it is against God.

Ultimate good vs. evil
One of the current trends in movies that I think is especially harmful is when they try to get you to root for a bad guy just because he is not as bad as the really bad guy. In large measure Hollywood has abandoned the pure “good vs. evil” storyline, because they think it is not realistic. It is too much of a fairy tale. But what they don’t realize is the most real war there is is the conflict between God and Satan. And that is a conflict between the most hideous and wicked evil and the most beautiful and glorious and delightful good. What is unrealistic and silly, foolish fantasy is Hollywood’s idea that evil is actually OK or even good if it is compared with worse evil. They make movies like that to justify the evil in their own hearts. But that is the ultimate fairy tale. Reality is that perfect good is fighting against total wickedness, and all unbelievers are on the side of wickedness all the time, and at any given moment Christians are fighting for one side or the other.

War illustration
I want you to imagine for a moment that over the next several years you and I witness Armageddon. And imagine that it unfolds this way: A world leader arises who develops a mind-control invention that he puts out through the airways on TV and radio. When people are exposed to it they become brainwashed and are easily influenced by this leader’s rhetoric. And as soon as that happens they willingly and enthusiastically take up arms begin fighting for this guy, and are even willing to die for his cause.
He unites the Muslim world and the Communist world. Most Muslims today do not really buy in to a literal reading of the Koran in the parts that call for killing the infidels. But imagine that this leader inspires the great majority of all the millions of Muslims around the world to take the Koran literally, and take up arms against Christians. And that vast network of nations along with all the terrorist organizations around the world, join forces with the two largest standing armies in the world. Right now the largest army is the Chinese army, with 1.6 million troops. Not far behind them is North Korea, with close to a million. The United States’ Army is #6 in the world - only about a half million. (Believe it or not, Pakistan has a larger army than we do). So imagine China and Russia and all the communist countries joining forces with all the Muslim countries and the terrorist organizations – all united under one leader who is a military genius. And country by country he starts taking over the whole world. He takes over India, which adds another million-plus man army, and moves through Europe and Africa and Asia and South America...
The United States sees what is happening and sends our military overseas to fight him, but in every single battle the US is quickly and decisively defeated. No matter what strategy we take, we get creamed every time. In a matter of just a few years he has taken over the every country in the world except the US. And now the big invasion begins. They come from the east and west coasts, from Canada and Mexico and from the air all at the same time.
The situation seems hopeless. You and your family are hunkered down in your basement in mortal fear. You are terrified, because you have seen on TV the unspeakable horrors that take place when these invaders come in. They hate the United States and have stated ahead of time that they are not interested in taking any prisoners. They are going to come in and torture, beat, rape, and terrorize us, and then kill us.
But just before they arrive you start hearing about this one American general who has actually had success against them. He is the only one in the whole world who has. He uses completely different techniques – techniques that seem counter-intuitive at first, and that are totally different from the normal strategies of warfare, but that really do work. Every battle he has fought using these techniques, he has won.
The problem is this world-leader has taken over the TV networks in the United States and set up a channel to broadcast his mind-control invention. If you tune in to channel 55, in a matter of moments you will be brainwashed and will start fighting against the good general.
Meanwhile the good general is going around raising an army to defend against the big attack. When he comes to your house you sign up before the words are even out of his mouth. And everybody else is doing the same.
And finally the invasion comes and at every single front this general’s army successfully repels the enemy. At one point you ask the general why he doesn’t make a full assault on the enemy and wipe him out completely. And he tells you that he first wants to get back as many of the brainwashed people as possible. And when that is done, then he will wipe the world leader and his army out.
The reason I ask you to imagine that scenario is not because I believe that is what will happen at the battle of Armageddon. In fact I am quite sure that is not what will happen. There is no reason to believe the United States will play any role in the battle of Armageddon unless it is one of the nations that comes to fight against God’s people. The point of my little story is not to suggest anything about what is going to happen in the future. The point of that story is to illustrate what already is happening right now. It is a metaphor. The huge, evil army illustrates Satan and all the forces of evil. The General illustrates the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into this world to destroy the works of the devil. And the army that this general is gathering illustrates the Church – Christians. 
And what John is teaching us in this passage is this: After many years of fighting for this general, a new generation grows up and starts taking over the fight. And one day you hear a group of these young people having a discussion. One of them says, “Hey, why don’t we ever watch channel 55?” And you are shocked when you hear some of the answers.
“It’s bad for your ears.”
“You shouldn’t watch that channel because it uses up too much electricity.” 
“55 is an evil number.”
“Watching that channel is bad because it wears out your remote clicking through that many channels.” 
And you’re appalled and you stand up and say “No, no, no! We don’t watch that channel because to do so would be treason! It would be suicide! It would be a decision to join the most evil empire there has ever been, and to fight against the greatest, most wonderful general there has ever been.”
And everywhere you look you see young people – one after another after another, caving in to the temptation to watch channel 55 because they do not understand what is so bad about it. They think, “So what if I wear out the remote? That’s not the end of the world. Who cares if I use a little extra electricity?” They don’t understand what is at stake – they don’t understand what is so bad about turning on channel 55, and so they can’t resist the temptation. 
Folks, we are in an actual war, as real as any war has ever been, and the enemy we are fighting against is more powerful and far more vicious and infinitely more wicked than the world ruler in my story. And there is much, much, much more at stake than just people being brutalized and raped and killed.
And there really is a channel 55, and it is called sin. And if your reasons for avoiding that channel are too small, then you won’t avoid it because it really is alluring. 
Do not stay away from sin mainly because it hurts people, or because it harms you, or because it is a big no-no. Stay away from sin because it is cosmic treason. Sin is not bad mainly because it hurts people. It is bad because it is taking up arms against the purist, holiest, most righteous, most beautiful, most generous, most loving, wisest, most benevolent, and most deserving, worthy being in existence. Sin is bad because it opposes the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is why there is no such thing as a small sin. Some sins have massive earthly consequences. Other sins seem to have no earthly consequences. But earthly consequences are not the measure of evil. All sin is cosmic treason against the Lord Jesus Christ who came into this world and laid down His life to fight against Satan.

Our Deliverer! 
Rejoice over the fact that Jesus appeared in this world to destroy the work of the devil. Jesus Christ is in the process of destroying the devil’s work in your life. Satan tempts and entices you, and works to draw you into sin, away from the Lord. Satan deceives us and takes advantage of our sinful gullibility – the inclinations of our hearts that are yearning to be tricked so they can indulge in evil. Satan puts evil thoughts in your head, and provides rationalizations for why it would be OK to think about them. And most of all the devil fights against you when you seek God. He does all he can to make sure you are too tired to rise early in the morning. He bombards you with distractions. He tries to cover your eyes to God’s glory, so you will not find His Word delightful and satisfying. He introduces doubts into your mind when God’s Word makes great claims. And what you do believe he distracts you from so you forget to think about it. He tries to trick you into holding grudges. He feeds the fires of envy and greed and lust and selfishness in your flesh. He is eager to sift you as wheat with the most painful suffering he can heap upon you. He does all he can to hinder and ruin and undo your work in God’s kingdom. And when you stumble, he is all over you with merciless effort to discourage and destroy you with your own guilt.
All that is being done by a being far more powerful than you – an evil being who is absolutely merciless. Think of how absolutely helpless and ruined you would be at his hands if not for the Lord Jesus Christ coming and destroying his works! In His great mercy He rescues us even when we so many times willingly give ourselves over to the enemy in cosmic treason against Him. He accepts our repentance and restores us! He takes back what the devil steals.
We intentionally wander into the territory of temptation, and then fall, and Jesus Christ still forgives. Time and time again He rescues us from Satan’s clutches when we have voluntarily given ourselves to him. We allow the chains to be placed on our wrists and still Jesus breaks us free. We allow ourselves to be deceived, in His great mercy He enlighten us by His Holy Spirit and shows us the truth. When Satan tugs on your sinful gullibility, Jesus tugs back on the righteousness of your new nature. Satan puts evil thoughts into my head, but the Lord provides the grace to dismiss those thoughts, and His Spirit gives you true, noble, right, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy things to think about, and He enables you to set your heart on things above. 
He exposes the folly of our rationalizations, and when our hearts are inclined away from Him, instead of the blows we deserve in hell He woos our hearts and draws us back to Him. He sustains you with His great and precious promises, and He works in you to will and to act so that your heart desires to seek Him. And when we seek, even with our lame, tepid, distracted, weak efforts, He so often allows Himself to be found by us. When the enemy seeks to shut our eyes to God’s glory, Jesus Christ causes His glory to shine right through your closed eyelids. What Satan puts to death in you Christ re-awakens. What Satan steals Jesus takes back. As the devil fuels the fires of sin in your flesh Jesus Christ douses those fires with love for God, and He stokes the flames of righteousness and love and zeal for His name. After Satan sifts you as wheat with agonizing suffering, the Good Shepherd restores your soul and makes you lie down in green pastures and leads you beside quiet waters so that you might strengthen your brothers. Satan’s efforts to hinder the work of the ministry cannot stand against the awesome, mighty power of Christ’s right arm, that lays low the nations and that sends the enemy fleeing in fear. And when he tries to kick you when you are down and destroy you with your own guilt, Jesus Christ – the atoning sacrifice for your sin – is your refuge and shield and fortress. He guards you and does not allow more blows than you can take. He picks you up and restores strength to you and puts the sword you have cast away back in your hand, and He remains by your side in the battle. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy; but the Son of God laid down His life to protect His sheep. And even when the murderer succeeds, He restores and renews, because He is the Author of life. That is what our Lord is doing. Let us be loyal in this war.

Benediction: Heb.12:28-29 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our "God is a consuming fire." 

Overcoming Evil: Part 9 Christians Can’t Sin 3:4-9

Summary: False teachers (then and now) disconnect behavior from position. John says believers cannot sin (unrepentantly). Sin is doing what God doesn’t like (God’s desires come to us as imperatives). God is the only source of righteousness and it can only come through new birth because it is a part of His very being (sin is of the devil, but does not require being born of the devil). Righteousness is the actions that come from the life of God (which is knowing God, remaining in God, and seeing God). So obviously it s impossible to have life from God (knowing, remaining, and seeing resulting in righteousness) and continue in unrepentant sin at the same time 

Introduction: The false teaching
Bob George
Anti-Lordship
Seeker churches
The Market for this
1 John is for us
Christians can’t sin?
Unrepentant sin
The meaning of repentance
What is sin? Doing what God doesn’t like
Law = heart of God
Love vs. Rule-keeping
What is righteousness? The activity of life from God
The Source
Why only through rebirth? To show that it’s an expression of His very self
His seed
What is life?
Knowing
Remaining
Seeing
The greatest pleasure
Seeing God defeats sin
Assurance of salvation – living!
The meaning of Righteousness – That which rises from the life of God
Examples
Righteousness impossible for unbelievers
Christ the standard of right and wrong
No position without conduct
Conclusion
Rejoice in your righteousness
Defeat sin with righteousness
Be born again!
Devotionals
Day 2: Sin is lawlessness
Day 2: The Source of Righteousness
Why only through rebirth? To show that it’s an expression of His very self
Day 3: What is life?
Knowing
Remaining
Seeing
Day 4: Assurance of salvation – living!
Day 5: Rejoice in your righteousness

 3:4 Everyone doing sin also does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one remaining in him sins. Everyone who sins has neither seen him nor known him. 
7 Dear children, do not be led astray. The one doing righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. 8 The one doing sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works. 9 All those having been born of God do not sin, because His seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Everyone who does not do righteousness is not from God; nor is anyone not loving his brother. 

Introduction: The false teaching

7 Dear children, do not be led astray.

John is writing to his dear children in the faith who are at risk of being deceived by the false teachers. His goal is to prevent them from being led astray. And so that is my goal as well.
Bob George
One of my duties as a pastor is warn you about false teachers. When we were in chapter 1 I had to talk to you about Bob George, because he is famous for convincing huge numbers of Christians through his books and radio program that it is wrong to confess your sins to God. But 1 John 1:9 tells us to do just that. Now that we are in chapter 3 the Apostle John and Bob George are going to have another major collision. One of the hallmarks of Bob George’s theology is the separation of our standing in Christ from our behavior. “Christianity is not about how well we behave but who we are in Christ.” In his mind, who you are in Christ is unrelated to how you behave. “Some people ask, ‘But I still commit sins. Doesn't that make me a sinner?’ I answer, ‘It depends on whether your identity is determined by your behavior and what you do or by who you are in God's eyes.’ Do you see how we have continued to do as Christians what the world does by determining a person's identity based on his behavior?” So for him, behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with your position in Christ. If you avoid sin you will find that you will be happier, but whether you avoid it or not has nothing to do with your salvation. In his book “Growing in Grace” he tells a story of a 54 year old man who lived his entire adult life as an unbeliever – running away from God. And George’s assessment of this man was this: “Even though he had been born again through trusting Christ at a young age, he had spent at least 35 years running away from God.” He tells another story of a man who lived a life of total rebellion against God. He was a male prostitute and almost killed himself with drugs, and he had zero interest in God. And yet he was still saved that whole time because he made a profession of faith as a child.
Anti-Lordship
This teaching has been around from the very beginning of Christianity. John had to fight it way back in the First Century, and we are still fighting it now in the 21st. And it is not just Bob George. The anti-Lordship Salvation teachers, such as Zane Hodges and Charles Ryrie, teach that it is possible to be saved and have no discernable fruit in your life at all. And Charles Stanley, in his horrendous book on Eternal Security, says that a person can trust in Christ for a moment, and from that moment on he is saved even if he denies the faith, becomes an atheist, and lives the rest of his life in blatant, unrepentant sin.
I do not believe any of those people are teaching those doctrines because they think it is OK to live in sin. Usually they have some reason they give people why they should avoid sin. Their motive is not to promote sin. Their motive is to preserve grace and guard against legalism and works-righteousness. They say that if there is any sense in which obedience to God is required, that is legalism. They say if God commands something and you make an effort to obey that command, that is legalism. In fact Bob George says that making an effort to obey God’s laws will keep you in bondage to sin.
Seeker churches
So there are teachers who are very explicit and come right out and say that there is no connection between your behavior and your identity and position in Christ. And there are other preachers and teachers out there who promote the same error in a more subtle way. Not all, but many of the largest and fastest growing churches in the country are large and fast-growing because they have sermons that usually do not have any drastic doctrinal error or heresy, but they leave out the parts of God’s Word that would make unrepentant sinners uncomfortable. They go on and on about how God loves you unconditionally no matter what, so that regardless of how you live your life during the week, you feel like you are OK with God if you just come to church on Sundays (or Saturdays or whenever they have their service). You mix that message with a really entertaining show on stage and your church will grow so fast you will not be able to keep up. People will join churches like that by the thousands.
The Market for this
There is a compelling drive in the hearts of unbelievers to somehow find a way to silence their pangs of conscience without actually repenting of their sin.

John 16:7-8 I will send [the Holy Spirit] to you. 8 When he comes, he will convict the world of [their] guilt 

The Holy Spirit convicts the world, and the world hates that. They cannot just live in peace with their sin until they can find a way to quiet their conscience. And so they invent a god who winks at sin and says, “Hey, don’t sweat it – I understand.” There is a book called “Conversations with God” in which a guy sat down, asked God a bunch of questions, and claims that God answered his questions. And the god who answered the questions gave answers that were just exactly what unbelievers want to hear: You do not have to give up your sin. You are doing just fine. I am not unhappy with you in the slightest – you can just do whatever you want. If you feel like engaging in homosexuality, go ahead. I created you that way. And don’t ask for forgiveness, because there is nothing to forgive. I do not judge anybody or look down on anybody in any way.
You say, “Isn’t that just a little bit transparent? Usually when people try to justify their sin they try to disguise it just a little bit at least. Isn’t this guy being a little bit obvious?” Well, people are falling for it by the millions. His book hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and has spawned all kinds of sequels, including versions for teens and children which are marketed to our kids in the public school system through the Scholastic Book Club.
Normally a book about God and prayer would not be pushed in the government schools, but when the god in the book says these kinds of things they want to distribute it as far and wide as possible. I read one reviewer that said his library had over 100 copies and it is impossible to ever get one. They are all always checked out. Give people a way to assuage their guilt without actually repenting and coming to Christ and you will gain a huge audience – whether you do it overtly like the book Conversations with God or more covertly like the preaching in the seeker churches that just leaves out anything that would make people feel bad; either way you will get a massive following. 
1 John is for us
The false teachers of John’s day were saying, “Sins do not have anything to do with whether you have fellowship with God.” So in this section John is going to show us why it is absolutely impossible to live in a way that is contrary to your standing in Christ. The book of 1 John as a whole, and today’s passage in particular, are so crystal clear that those doctrines are false that instead of trying to come up with twisted interpretations of 1 John that would fit their view, the proponents of those doctrines have tended to revert to just writing off the whole book as non-applicable to believers. They say it is for unbelievers, not believers. Or they say it is for Jews and not Gentiles, or it is for some other dispensation. 
That view is called Mid-Acts Dispensationalism, and it says that only Paul teaches the gospel of grace. Peter and John and James and Jesus taught a different gospel – a gospel of law for the Jews. But Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, and so he taught grace. And repentance is part of the old gospel of law, not the new gospel of grace. But they ignore the fact that Paul preached repentance – the same gospel of repentance to both Jews and Gentiles.

Acts 26:20 First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. 

They also ignore the fact that Peter and John and Jesus taught grace. 1 John starts by talking about the incarnation of Christ, in 1:7 he talks about being purified by the blood of Jesus, and in 2:2 Christ as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. So do not be deceived by those who would tell you that this book is not for us. This book and this passage in particular is for us, it is for Christians in our era, it means what it says, and it is the Word of God, and we must take it at face value.

Christians can’t sin?
So what does John have to say about this question of whether your behavior is relevant with regard to your salvation? 
Unrepentant sin
6 No one remaining in him sins. 

No Christian sins. That sounds like an outrageous claim. And John does not soften what he is saying. In fact in verse 9 he takes it even further.

9 All those having been born of God do not sin, because His seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God.

Not only do born-again people not sin – they are not even able to do so.
How do you harmonize that with what John said in chapter 1?

1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves 

1:10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar 

Clearly John believes that every Christian is currently committing sins.
So how do we reconcile chapter 1 with chapter 3? The answer is very simple. John expects that when you read chapter 3 you will remember chapter 1. At the outset of the book John made it clear that when he speaks of sinners he means people who continue in unrepentant sin. And when he speaks of the righteous he means people who confess their sins and repent of them. And so when John speaks of those who sin here in chapter 3 he is talking about the people who sin without repentance. The point of verse 6 is that no one who remains in him continues in unrepentant sin. And the point of verse 9 is that it is impossible for a Christian to continue in unrepentant sin because God’s seed remains in him.

The meaning of repentance
And by repentance John obviously does not mean total success in your fight against that sin, because he already said no one ever gets to the point of being without sin. When people say, “Oh, you fell into that sin again – your repentance must not have been genuine” – those people misunderstand repentance.
On the other hand repentance is more than merely admitting you did wrong. True repentance is a function of the mind, the affections, and the will. Mentally you acknowledge that what you did was evil. Emotionally you are broken and contrite and sorrowful over the evil in your heart that led to the sin. And volitionally your will stands up and resolves to take whatever action possible that will prevent falling to that sin in the future. Repentance that only makes it as far as your mouth but leaves your mind, emotions, and will untouched is not really repentance. So, when John talks about the righteous people and the sinners, the righteous are people who repent of their sin and the sinners are people who do not. So the point of this passage is, if you are a believer you cannot be one of those people who refuses to repent of some sin in your life that you know about.
Now why is that? Why is unrepentant sin impossible for a true Christian? John is going to answer that by telling us three things – 1) the meaning of sin, 2) the meaning of life from God, and 3) the meaning of righteousness. As soon as you understand those three definitions, it will be obvious that unrepentant sin is impossible for a Christian. 

What is sin? Doing what God doesn’t like
Law = heart of God
So let us start with the meaning of sin. Last week we focused on the statement in verse 4: sin is lawlessness. Lawlessness in this context means siding with the Devil against Jesus Christ (which is why the Antichrist is called the man of lawlessness). When you sin you are opposing God and joining forces with Satan. Why is that? I act selfishly with my family, or I have pride in my heart, or I modify the truth just a little bit to make myself look better, or I gossip or complain or worry - why is it that God regards that as treason against Him? Why can’t I do those things and still be on God’s side?
In other words, why did God outlaw the things He outlawed? If the United States Congress passed a law saying, “If you chew gum, you are guilty of treason against the United States and will be put to death,” we would ask our Congressmen – “Why did you make that the law?” And many people have wanted to ask God, “Why did you make it the law that if I look with lust I am guilty of treason against You?” Or why is it so serious to fail to passionately love my spouse? Or why do I have to obey wicked governments or foolish bosses? Why did God outlaw the things He outlawed?
In the United States government the way something becomes law is an interesting process. It starts with a congressman. Some congressman sees a need for a law – he has an idea that if a certain thing were law it would make society run more smoothly, or someone else thinks it would be a good idea and persuades the congressman to introduce it as a bill. And if that bill is passed by both houses of Congress and the President signs it, it becomes the law. That is the legislative process for the United States. 
But what is the legislative process for God? How did He decide what we would be allowed to do and not allowed to do? Did He use His infinite knowledge to think through which standards would work out best for society, and make those His laws? Or did He figure out which standards would bring Him most glory and make those His laws? No, that is not how He did it.
There is a sense in which it is misleading to even ask how God determined what His laws would be. God’s laws are not ideas He had for how to make things run smoothly. God’s laws are nothing more than His desires. When you hear the word “law” in the Bible, think “heart of God.” When God likes something, the very fact that He likes it makes that thing virtuous. And when God does not like something the very fact that He does not like it makes that thing evil. So God’s likes and dislikes come to us as obligations.
When I have a preference that imposes no moral obligation on anyone. But when God has a preference or desire it comes to us in the form of an obligation, because whatever God likes is the highest good. So whatever God likes, whatever God prefers, whatever God enjoys, whatever God delights in, whatever God wills – that comes to us in the form of an “ought.” If God likes it, you ought to like it. If you find out that I really like brownies and ice cream that imposes no obligation on you. It says absolutely nothing about whether you ought to like or dislike that particular dessert. But if you find out God really likes something that imposes an obligation because the fact that God likes it makes it a moral good. So in a very literal sense God’s wish is our command.
Some people teach that the only purpose of the law is to condemn. And so there is no more purpose for it for the Christian. But that is dead wrong – the law of God is precious to the Christian because it is a display of the heart of God. It shows us what God likes and what is good.
So what is sin? It is doing things that violate God’s law. And that which is against the law of God is against the will and desire of God.
Love vs. Rule-keeping
This is why keeping God’s law is very different than following rules. There are some times when keeping a rule really is not the best thing. It does not benefit you or anyone else, it is not what you would choose – you just do it because that is what the rule requires (like waiting at a red light when no one is around). There is no inherent good in it; it is just something that, if people follow it, will usually benefit the society or organization.
But the desires and pleasures of God are different. In every context in every moment what God likes is always the best of all possibilities. There is never a time when righteousness is like one of those rules that may or may not be good in a particular instance. We do righteousness because we know that what God desires is absolutely the best thing in every way in every context.

What is righteousness? The activity of life from God
So, what is sin? Sin is doing the opposite of what God likes – the opposite of God’s desire. Next question: what is righteousness? 
The Source
John is not going to give us a direct statement on that question. Instead he is going to start by showing us the source of righteousness. 

2:29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone doing righteousness has been born of him. 

From that verse alone you can see that new birth is linked with behavior. But it is linked in kind of an unexpected way. What we might have expected John to say was that anyone who is born of God will do what is righteous. If you are a true Christian, then you will do righteous things – that is what we are used to hearing from John. And he will make that point starting in verse 4, but that is not really his point here. Here his point is to say, “If you do righteous things, think about where that comes from. Trace that righteousness back to its source.”
In the absolute sense only God is righteous. You and I do righteous things, but we are not righteous in the absolute sense. God is not only the epitome of righteousness, but He is the one and only source of righteousness. He makes that same point again in 3:7.

7 Dear children, do not be led astray. The one doing righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous.

If you are righteous it comes from “that one” (the Lord Jesus Christ).
Why is that the case? Why is it that my practicing righteous deeds can only be a result of new birth? Why can’t righteous deeds come about in some other way besides new birth?
Why only through rebirth? To show that it i’s an expression of His very self
We get a clue to the answer by comparing 2:29 to 3:8. 2:29 talks about those who practice righteousness and 3:8 talks about those who practice sin. But there is a key difference. It says those who carry out righteousness are born of God, but it does not say those who carry out sin are born of Satan. It just says that they are of Satan. You do not need to get life from Satan in order to mimic his work and fight on his side of the war.
But righteousness is different. God only gives His righteousness one way – the same way you pass on your characteristics – through birth. If someone walks up to you and says, “I wish I were as tall as you” or “I wish my eyes looked like yours” you can’t just say, “Oh, well here – have some of my DNA.” You can pass your DNA on to your children, but not to anyone else. Your genetic makeup can only be passed on through birth.
And it is the same way with God. He does not give righteousness to people except through the new birth. Righteousness is such an essential part of the very nature of God that He will not give it through any other means. He does not want us to think of it as a thing that He possesses and distributes, but rather as part of Him – part of His very self. Righteousness is the expression of God Himself. It is an expression of who and what He is. And to drive that home in our understanding He makes it so it is only available through new birth. You do not need to be born of Satan to sin, but you do need to be born of God to do righteousness. 
His seed
9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
In procreation a man’s seed is that part of him that passes his genes and his life on to his child. By referring to the seed of God we see again that John is not focusing on the legal status of sonship, but rather on the natural family relation – having God’s very DNA, as it were – having the very life of God in you. And righteousness is the actions that are caused by that life.
What is life?
And that brings us to our next question – what is life? When I talk about having the life of God in you, or having God’s DNA, or being born of Him - all that seems so abstract. What does it actually mean in practical terms? John has already answered that question earlier in the book. Being spiritually alive - having the life of God in you - means being able to have fellowship with God – being able to interact with Him in a positive way. And that fellowship is not just an acquaintance. It is much closer than that.

Knowing
For one thing it involves knowing God – knowing Him in the biblical sense. Scripture uses that term “know” to describe the closest, most intimate kind of relationship. Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived. God told Israel “You only have I known among the nations.” It is that kind of knowledge – unique, intimate, personal interaction. John spoke about that back in 2:3-4, and again in 2:13-14.

2:13 I have written to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. 

So having life from God involves knowing God personally and intimately. 

Remaining
Another way John has described it so far in the book is with the term “remaining.”

2:24 See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us--even eternal life.

Spiritual life involves remaining in Him. The idea of remaining with someone speaks of companionship, keeping someone company, or living with a person in his home.
Having life from God means you live with Him. You have God as a Companion in life. He is always near you, and He is interested in your life, and He cares for you. You are interested in Him and pay attention to Him, and your life revolves around Him. You look to Him for everything, and talk to Him about everything that is in your heart. And you care more about His opinion than anyone else’s. And you desire nearness to Him more than anything else. That is remaining – companionship. 

Seeing
The greatest pleasure
Seeing God is the greatest possible pleasure. God designed us to be capable of experiencing all kinds of different sensations of pleasure. Tastes, sensations on the skin, emotional experiences, different kinds of surroundings, smells, things you look at – all of those can cause pleasure. But of all the experiences and sensations that a human being could possibly undergo, which one would generate the greatest, most intense, most fulfilling sensations of pleasure? The answer is, hands down, by far the greatest possible sensation of pleasure would come from seeing the glory of God with unhindered ability to appreciate it. If you could behold what God is like (His attributes), and not be blinded to what is wonderful about those attributes, that would give you more pleasure than anything else possibly could. And so that is the great hope of the Christian. That is what we look forward to more than anything – seeing Him as He is.
In this life our ability to see His glory is hindered, so we see what Paul described as just a poor reflection as in a mirror. As distorted and clouded and obscured as that reflection is, however, there is still a very real sense in which we are able to see God even in this life. If we seek hard after Him it is possible to have the blinders partially removed so we can appreciate what is wonderful about various attributes of God. And you can have an experience of those attributes in such a way that the beauty of them becomes vivid in your heart. That is seeing God. Seeing God is not having a vision or a dream. Seeing God means having experiences of His attributes that cause His beauty and goodness to become vivid in your heart.
Seeing God defeats sin
And it is by seeing Him in that sense that we fight against sin in our lives. John hints at that in verse 8.

8 …The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's works.

We might have expected him to say “the reason the Son of God came,” but he says, “the reason the Son of God appeared…” He picks a term that has to do with seeing. Jesus appearance – His being seen is what destroys the devil’s works. That is how you defeat sin in your life – by seeing Him – having an experience of His attributes that causes His beauty and goodness to become vivid in your heart.
Assurance of salvation – living!
So what does it mean to be born of God or to have the life of God or to have God’s DNA? What does all that mean? It means to know God, remain in God, and see God.
Do you ever question your salvation and wonder if you are truly born again? I certainly hope you do.

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. 

How do you do that? How do you know for sure if you have truly been born again?
The wrong way to do it is the way most people do it. They look back to their conversion and try to figure out if they were really sincere or not. You do not prove your spiritual life by looking back to your conversion any more than you prove that you are alive physically by checking to see if your birth certificate is on file. If a doctor wants to know if you are alive he does not check the files – he checks your breathing and pulse and brain waves. If your brain is functioning and your heart is beating and you are breathing, then you are currently living.
And it is the same spiritually. You do not look back to see if you were born in order to prove that you are living. You check to see whether you are living now, and if you are that is proof that you have been born.
So how do you check to see if you are living spiritually? What are the breathing, pulse, and brain waves of spiritual life? Knowing God, remaining in God, and seeing God.

The meaning of Righteousness – That which rises from the life of God 
Those are three elements of life from God that John has emphasized so far in the book. Now, with that in mind, look at verse 6.

3:6 No one remaining in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

John mentions those same three evidences. If you are alive to God spiritually – if you are a child of God who has been born again – then you will remain in Him, see Him and know Him.
I realize this is a lot to try to follow, but it is important that we understand John’s argument here. We ask John, “What is righteousness?” and John says, “Let me answer that by showing you a couple things. First, the only way to get righteousness is to get God’s DNA – life from God. It only comes through knowing Him and companionship with Him and seeing Him.” So what is righteousness? Righteousness is the actions that arise from knowing, remaining, and seeing.
Examples
So if you are a person who knows God personally and intimately – you have personal interactions with Him; you speak to Him and He listens and responds, and you enjoy being listened to by Him; you pay attention to Him – to what He teaches you through His Word, to how He leads and guides you, etc; and out of that kind of personal, relational knowledge of God you do something… that action you carry out as a result of those personal interactions with God – that action is righteousness. So through your knowledge of God you discover God is leading you to take a certain job. Taking that job then, is righteousness.
The same goes for remaining – companionship with Him. If you are a person who is remaining in Christ – spending time with Him and enjoying His companionship through thick and thin, and as a result of that companionship you carry out some action - say a threat arises and you proceed with great courage and joy because of your enjoyment of the constant nearness of God; that is an action that arose as a result of remaining in Him and it is therefore righteousness.
And the same is true of seeing Him. If you are a person who sees His glory and through study of Scripture and prayer and deep meditation and seeking hard after Him some of His attributes come into focus and the beauty and goodness and desirability of them becomes vivid in your heart; and as a result of that you carry out some action - say the beauty of the Lord’s compassion becomes so vivid and desirable in your heart that you find yourself having compassion on someone else out of delight in that attribute of God, or the beauty of His forgiveness becomes so vivid and desirable in your heart that you forgive someone who has sinned against you just out of delight in that attribute of God – those are actions that resulted from seeing Him and are therefore righteousness.
Righteousness impossible for unbelievers
Actions that flow from life from God (knowing, remaining, and seeing) – those actions are what John means by the term “righteousness.” And that is why only born-again people can practice righteousness. A non-Christian can forgive, but he cannot forgive as a result of knowing God. An atheist can be kind or generous or compassionate, but he cannot do that as a result of remaining in God or seeing His glory. If the definition of righteousness is that which comes out of spiritual life, then obviously no one who lacks spiritual life can do righteousness. Unbelievers can be friendly, they can tell the truth, they can be kind, faithful, gentle – all that; but if they do not do those things as a result of intimate personal knowledge of God, companionship with God, and enjoying His attributes vividly in the heart, then it is not righteousness.
Christ the standard of right and wrong
So if you are wondering if something in your life is sin or not, or if something in your life is righteousness or not, these definitions should help you. I love that statement in verse 7…

3:7 He who does what is right is righteous, just as that one is righteous.

Jesus Christ is the standard of righteousness. It is such a wonderful thing that God became human and lived in this world. If Jesus had not done that I think there would be a whole lot of things we would assume to be sin that are not sin. It is not a sin to be tired. It is not a sin to weep and groan when you are in pain. It is not a sin to be subject to human limitation and weakness or to feel guilty for not being able to do what would be impossible for you to do. Jesus was subject to human limitations, and He never sinned. Sin is when you treasure something God hates. And righteousness is whatever results from having fellowship with God.

No position without conduct
Now that we understand all that – now that we understand what sin is what life from God is and what righteousness is, now that we know all that, John is ready in verses 7-8 to say what we expected him to say back in 2:29.

7 The one doing righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. 8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil

The idea that you can separate conduct from position; the idea that the way you live your life has no bearing on whether or not you are saved – that idea is false. And anyone who says that does not understand what sin is, what life from God is, and what righteousness is. You can hold your breath temporarily, and your heart might skip a beat from time to time, and your brain waves may not be what they ought to be at this moment, but if those things are gone altogether you are not alive physically. And if you do not know God, are not remaining in God, and do not see His glory then you do not have spiritual life. But if you do have life from God, and you do know, remain, and see, then those activities will draw you near to the heart of God. And the nearer you get to the heart of God the more repulsed you will be by that which God hates. If there is an ongoing, unrepentant preferring of that which God hates over that which God loves, then you are not drawing near to the heart of God, which means you do not have life from God.

Conclusion
Let me close by offering three quick points of application.
Rejoice in your righteousness 

2:29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone doing righteousness has been born of him.

A child who looks just like his parents can look in a mirror and then look at a picture of his parents and understand where his looks came from. And a person who does what is righteous can look at God and understand where he got his righteousness. All the little flickers of righteousness in your life – every tinge of delight you have ever had in His Word, every moment of joy in His presence, all your good desires, acts of obedience, efforts to glorify His name, acts of preferring His grace above some earthly treasure – however incomplete and inadequate they are, still it is clear that God’s fingerprints are all over them. Our evil hearts are naturally capable of producing none of that, so to the degree those things exist in us they have come from Him. Our righteousness is an alien righteousness. It is the very life of God in us.
Defeat sin with righteousness
Secondly, defeat sin with righteousness. There is no more fundamental key to defeating sin than what we see here in this text. The solution to sin is righteousness. You cannot defeat sin by just trying to resist it. You can only defeat sin by increasing in righteousness. And you increase in righteousness through knowing God, remaining in God and enjoying companionship with Him, and seeing His glory. That is why Jesus said if you can just love God you will fulfill the whole law. 
Be born again!
And finally, if you examine your life and do not see true righteousness, then you need to be born again. And if your soul resists that and says, “No, years ago I prayed a prayer and gave my life to Jesus and I know I meant it!” – don’t let that stop you. Think of the stupidity of going to hell for eternity just because you did not want to admit that maybe you have not been truly saved all this time. You might have grown up in a Christian home, gone to church all your life, walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, filled out a card, raised your hand – but if there is no fellowship with God generating true righteousness in your life then you are not born again. Coming to church does not make you a Christian any more than going to MacDonald’s makes you a hamburger – there must be a supernatural transformation.
If there is some sin in your life that you have been unwilling to give up, now is the time. That sin is not worth sacrificing your eternal destiny. Just let go of it. Believe the promise of God that nearness to Him is better than whatever you are getting from that sin. Believe that, and entrust your life into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. Seek forgiveness for your sin based on Jesus’ payment when He died on the cross and bore the wrath of God in your place. If you do that, the moment God sees that faith in your heart you will be forgiven, and you will receive life from God, and you can begin to engage in the most satisfying activity there is – knowing God, remaining in God, and seeing His glory.

Benediction: 1 Th.5:23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

Overcoming Evil: Part 10 Cain or Christ? 1 John 3:10-18

Summary: The command to love is part of the gospel itself, which requires obedience. Not like Cain the butcher. Why did he murder? Because he passed up the opportunity to repent and clung to his sin causing God to let Satan (the first murderer) loose on him. The way of Christ also resulted in someone dying (Christ). That way is to lay down your own life for your brother (meet his needs). Selfish pride focuses on whether you are loving me, which is the way of Cain (preferring that your brother’s life be laid down). Humility considers your brother more important. 

Introduction
Lack of love = child of the devil
Message from the beginning
The gospel must be obeyed
The way of Cain
Why bring up the extreme?
Why did Cain Butcher Abel?
God’s acceptance of Abel and rejection of Cain
Makes Cain angry at God
Taken out on the one God loves
The crossroads of repentance
How he fell under Satan’s influence
Because his deeds were evil = because he was unrepentant
Exposing lack of love for the Cain-likeness that it is
Hatred
Don’t be surprised (v.13)
Death to Life (v.14)
Haters are murderers (no eternal life) v.15
The way of Christ
Lay down your life
Lay down your life = sacrificing for your brother
Compassion
Humility
Conclusion

1 John 3:10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Everyone who does not do righteousness is not from God; nor is anyone not loving his brother. 
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. 
13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. 
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 

Introduction
Most people choke a little bit when they read chapter 2 and John says, “There are only two kinds of people – the people who love like Jesus, and haters.” That does not leave us with any middle ground. And just about the time when you finally are able to swallow that hard saying down, now here in chapter 3 John makes an even more extreme sounding statement. In this passage he is going to say that there are only two kinds of people – those who love like Jesus, and murderers. Every non-Christian is a murderer. Being subtle is evidently not what John is shooting for. He wants to get our attention – so let’s give it to him. More importantly, let’s give our attention to the Holy Spirit who is here right now to teach us.
Lack of love = child of the devil
The first half of verse 10 summarizes what John has been saying since the beginning of chapter 3.

10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Everyone who does not do righteousness is not from God

And then John gets more specific about what he means by doing righteousness.

… Everyone who does not do righteousness is not from God nor is anyone not loving his brother. 

And from that statement to the end of the chapter it is all about love. John constantly hammers away at this throughout his book. Righteousness, good deeds, good works, walking in the light - none of it happens apart from love. If you feel you are doing well in other areas, but not in the area of love, you do not understand what righteousness is. If you are not doing well in the area of love you are not doing well in any area, because that is the only area there is. You subtract love from any good deed and you are left with nothing but 100% sin. In fact, for John that is the gospel itself.
Message from the beginning
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 

Verse 11 is the ground that supports verse 10. The one who fails to love is unsaved because of the fact that the command to love was part of the message (which is another word for the gospel). John says, “Love is not an ancillary, secondary aspect of Christianity. Right from the beginning love has been an essential, core part of the gospel itself.” The gospel is the message of salvation. It is the message that tells us how to have our sins forgiven, to go from death to life, darkness to light, and to have eternal life. And at the core of that message is a command to love our brothers.

The gospel must be obeyed
That statement receives fierce disagreement from the anti-lordship crowd and some of the false teachers I have mentionedk, who insist there is no command at all in the gospel. They say, “No, the gospel does not command or require anything because then it would be a matter of law and not grace. It is not something that can be obeyed or disobeyed.”
But Scripture teaches just the opposite. Faith involves your whole heart – which includes your will. And the gospel is something that comes to us in the form of a command and that must be obeyed.

2 Thessalonians 1:8 He will punish those who … do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

1 Peter 4:17 what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

1 Peter 2:8 They stumble because they disobey the message

Romans 6:17 though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

The gospel is something the sinner must obey. It is a command to believe with all your heart. And part of what must be believed is that God’s way is best and the way of sin is not best, which is why true faith always comes with repentance. The gospel commands the sinner to embrace the truth, and the truth is that righteousness is better than evil. And the core of righteousness is love for God. And love for God must be expressed in love for the people God loves because God loves them. So if you do not love God’s people then you do not love God, and if you do not love God you do not have faith, and if you do not have faith you are lost. Salvation is by faith alone, but the catch is it has to be real faith. And real faith involves your whole heart – including your will.

The way of Cain
So, the command to love is an essential core of the gospel. That is the starting point. And from there John is going to give us a negative example and a positive example. The positive example is Christ; the negative example is Cain. And both examples take a life. In Cain’s approach and in Christ’s approach, somebody ends up dead. John shows us Cain first.

12 Not like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. 
Why bring up the extreme?
Now why would John bring up such an extreme example? Usually when you teach about failure to love you try to think of a subtle example, so that people feel convicted. But John does just the opposite. In fact, the word translated “murdered” refers to killing with a violent, bloody death. A better translation would be 

12 not like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and butchered his brother. 

The word means to butcher – it is a very strong, ugly, extreme term. Genesis 4 just says he killed him – John says he butchered him.
Why the extreme language? We will see the answer in a minute, but first let’s take a look at verse 12. This is the only place where John ever asks himself a question, so it stands out as a real attention getter as you read through 1 John.

12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and butchered his brother. And why did he butcher him? 

Instead of just telling us why he stops and asks why, and then tells us. That shows us that this issue of why Cain did what he did is especially important.
Why did Cain butcher Abel?
12 …Why did he butcher him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's were righteous. 
Most people assume the issue here is envy. But I think there is more to it than just that. In Genesis 4 we can see what John means by Cain’s deeds being evil. That is obviously not talking about the murder because it is the reason for the murder. So what does John mean that his deeds were evil?

God’s acceptance of Abel and rejection of Cain
The murder takes place in verse 8. But to understand why it happens we have to back up to verse 3.

Genesis 4:3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. 4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. 

It does not say anything about the quality of Cain’s offering, but it says two things about Abel’s – fat portions and firstborn. In other words, Abel brought his best, which was the way God had taught the people back then to show their faith. Evidently Cain did not bring his best.
And that fits with Hebrews 11:4, which says that Abel’s sacrifice was offered as an expression of faith, implying Cain’s was not. And without faith it is impossible to please God, so it is no surprise that God was not pleased with Cain’s offering.

4 …The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.

The only way to receive favor from God is through faith. Worship and religion and sacrifice apart from faith get you nothing but God’s disapproval. 

Makes Cain angry at God 
So, how is Cain going to respond? 

5 …So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 

He is mad at God for not accepting him just as he is, with unconditional love. “How dare you say I have to give up my sin, God? It is intolerable that You should require me to give up these deeds and attitudes that I want to cling to. Why can’t You just accept me for what I am – with unconditional love?” God does not give unconditional love – it is always conditioned on faith, and that makes Cain angry.

Taken out on the one God loves
When a sinful heart is unwilling to let go of a sin, and that person is confronted with the fact of God’s disapproval, it results in anger at God. And that kind of anger toward God will inevitably be expressed in animosity toward God’s people, which is why Abel ends up dead. Cain is mad at God, God is out of reach, so he strikes at the man God loved – Abel. I doubt that was Cain’s conscious thought process, but that is the way anger at God will tend to express itself – through hostility toward those people God loves.
If you find that you cannot get along with a fellow Christian – or you have trouble loving people in the Church, one thing to consider is the possibility that there is a sense in your heart that God does not approve of you. Or you are not appreciating God’s approval of you because you care more about the approval of men. Or maybe you have a sense that God is requiring too much of you. And that makes you angry. But you would not dare direct your anger toward God, so you end up taking it out on God’s people and you do not even realize that is why you are doing it. Have you noticed how grouchy you get when you have a guilty conscience? A guilty conscience can be the cause of all kinds of different sins against people.

The crossroads of repentance 
So Cain is mad because God does not accept him, and as a result his brother ends up dead. But that is not all there is to the story. Cain gets mad in verse 5. But Abel does not get killed until verse 8. What happens between verse 5 and verse 8?
What happens is God gives us insight into Satan’s role in this whole thing and how temptation works. God comes to him and says, “You are rejected now, but you don’t have to be. You can still be accepted.”

6 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? 

So God is tugging at Cain’s heart toward righteousness, but there is about to be a tug in the other direction as well.

7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.

Sin is personified as someone crouching at the door – someone who has a desire to have you – control you – dominate you. When Moses wrote that, he did not know all that we know about Satan. But the New Testament writers see Satan as the one who was at work in the serpent in chapter 3 as well as the one at work in Cain’s heart in chapter 4. Which is one reason why John says here that Cain belonged to the devil (1 Jn.3:12). 

How he fell under Satan’s influence 
But look carefully at how Cain ended up being mastered by Satan rather than the other way around. Look at the two “if” statements in verse 7.

7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door…

God has Satan on a leash, and has not let him go on Cain just yet. And whether or not God will let go of the leash depends on which option Cain chooses – to do what is right or to fail to do what is right. So what is this magical “right” thing that will not only protect him from Satan and temptation but also cause him to be accepted by God?
The only right thing I can find in the context that is the right thing is the thing Abel did –to come to God in faith and offer acceptable worship. If Cain comes to God in faith, God will accept him and protect him from Satan. But if he does not, Satan will be let loose on him, and will overcome him.
That is often the pattern in Scripture. When you hold on to some sin in your heart, God will sometimes respond by giving you over to even higher levels of temptation that will overwhelm you.

Ecclesiastes 7:26 I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare.

If you are pleasing God by faith, and repenting of your sin, God will give you special protection that will make you more able to escape temptation. But if you are clinging to some treasured sin in your heart, God will often allow you to be ensnared by further sin. That is the principle God is giving to Cain. There is a way out – repent of your sin, do what is right and respond in faith. But if you do not do that, the enemy will spring upon you and you will be overwhelmed.
So Cain is at a crossroads. This is the crossroads of repentance. You have gone off the right path, you become aware of your sin, God brings the possibility of repentance to mind, and now you have to make a choice. The next verse tells us which path Cain chose:

8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Because his deeds were evil = because he was unrepentant 
So back to John’s big question – why did Cain do it? John says it was because his deeds were evil, Genesis says he failed to do what is right, but what does that mean? I am convinced what that means is when he got to the crossroads of repentance he passed it up and clung to his sin.
And that interpretation fits the other places where John talks about someone’s deeds being evil.

John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Clinging to sin at the crossroads of repentance will have an effect on what you love. It affects your desires, affections, will, perception, inclinations, and reasoning. It will cause your heart to prefer darkness over light, and it will result in animosity toward the light.
Exposing lack of love for the Cain-likeness that it is
So now we can finally answer our first question. Why does John give such an extreme example of lack of love? Why butchery rather than some subtle example that people could identify with? Because he wants to expose all non-love for what it is – wicked Cain-likeness. 
All through chapter 3 John’s point has been the unbreakable connection between deeds and nature. Your deeds reflect what you are. When you are unloving, and you pass up repentance, you are like Cain. What is Cain likeness? Unrepentant opposition against God expressed in opposition against His people.
And you hear that and think, “Wait a minute – that’s not me. Sure I’m failing to love, but I’m not like Cain!” And John says, “Yes you are. If you are unrepentant, you are just like Cain the butcher.” 

Hatred 
This is a lot like what he said back in chapter 2 that all failures to love are hatred. Love involves…
Having high regard for the person
Desiring their best interests and their happiness
Prioritizing them above your own impulses and preferences
Liking them – enjoying them and taking delight in them.
That is love. 
So hatred is when you lack in those areas.
Hatred is when you have low regard. 
The person has little or no value in your heart. 
He is not a treasure to you. 
He is not worthy of your time and attention and concern. 
You are indifferent to his best interests. Instead of strongly desiring his happiness you are indifferent to his happiness. It does not cause you any sorrow if he is unhappy (you might even enjoy it).
You regard yourself and your own immediate desires as a higher priority than that person. You do not delight in or enjoy the person. You become blind to everything that is good and beautiful about him. You cannot see the image of God in him. You cannot see him as a precious treasure that is highly valued in God’s sight. You cannot enjoy God through him like you can with people you love.
So back in chapter 2 we learned that all of that is hatred, and now here in chapter 3 we find it is also Cain-likeness. It is opposition against God, refusal to take the way of repentance, giving yourself over to Satan, and taking that opposition out on someone God loves. And whether that goes all the way to butchering someone in a field or just being cool and indifferent toward a brother it does not matter – it is all Cain-likeness.
 Don’t be surprised (v.13)
And that explains verse 13.

13 Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.

There are two sides in this war – God’s and Satan’s. And those who are on God’s side love, and those who are on Satan’s side continue in unrepentant failure to love. So do not be shocked when the world hates you. They are a bunch of Cains. They are in the lap of the evil one, who hates God and takes it out on God’s people, so of course they are going to hate you.
John uses the word “if” – which probably points to the fact that the hatred is not constant. There are some times when their opposition to us is in the background, and they leave us alone for a time, and other times when their opposition becomes vicious. And if it happens to be one of those times when it gets really bad – do not be surprised. It should not alarm us when people at work chuckle at us behind our backs or turn a cold shoulder to us after we share the gospel with them. It should not surprise us when one of the candidates for president talks about us as clinging bitterly to religion and in the same sentence puts us in the category of racists. It should not surprise us that local governments are allowed to shut down churches and prevent new churches from starting with their zoning laws. And it should not surprise us when the day comes when that latent hostility breaks out into full-blown persecution. This world hates Jesus Christ and the more we love like Jesus loved the more certain their hatred for us will become. This is a war with only two sides, so do not be shocked when the other side opposes you.

Death to Life (v.14)
And all of us used to be on the other side.

14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 

We are to love people in the world too, but especially brothers because God especially loves His children. 
And once again here we see a clear statement about the need for conversion. Sometimes you ask people how they became a Christian and they say, “Oh, I’ve always been a Christian.” No one has always been a Christian. The only way anyone can possibly be a Christian is if there was a specific moment of conversion in which they passed from death to life. My first daughter was literally born on Saturday and in church the following day and has come to church regularly ever since. Ours is a Christian home – but none of that made her a Christian. She is a Christian because one day she responded in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ and at that moment passed from death into life.
And that is true of every genuine Christian. And if you think, “But wait – if I can’t remember my conversion, how do I know if it ever actually happened? How do I know if I have passed from death to life?”

14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. 

You love the people God loves because God loves them, and you are repentant over your failures to love – that is how you know.
Haters are murderers (no eternal life) v.15
15 Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him. 

Criminals commit about 18,000 murders every single year in the United States. That is 50 murders every day. And of course that number is dwarfed by the number of parents who kill their own children every year. Over 3500 innocent children are slaughtered by their own parents in the United States every day.
And by the way – if you are having trouble deciding how to vote – this is something you should take into consideration. The Democratic Party platform is strongly and unapologetically in favor of abortion on demand at any stage for any reason and the Republican Party platform is strongly against that. Slavery was horrible; abortion is far worse, and no matter what you believe about which economic approach will bring more prosperity it seems to me that the lives of thousands of innocent children every year is far more important than somebody’s tax policies. 
But even if we stopped killing our own babies in this country it would not solve the murder problem. For every one baby aborted in the United States there are 40,000 more aborted in the rest of the world. Murder is a huge problem in this world because the whole world lies in the lap of the evil one and he was a murderer from the beginning. 
But that still leaves the question of how John calls all unbelievers murderers. How can he say that? He can say it because the one orchestrating all these murders and all of the rest of the evil in this world is in a war against Jesus Christ, and all unbelievers are on his side in this war.
If it is World War II and you have to decide which side you are going to fight on, and you choose Hitler’s side, by making that choice you take upon yourself the guilt of what that side is doing. And that is true even if your gun jams, or all your shots miss or you serve in the background so you don’t actually kill anybody. Still – if you join Hitler’s army you take upon yourself the guilt of what Hitler was doing. And if you join Satan’s army you take upon yourself culpability for what Satan is doing. And Satan was a murderer from the beginning. 
What do non-Christians do with their lives other than promote spiritual death? They themselves are dead to God. They cannot have any positive, personal interactions of love with God, their eyes are blind to what is wonderful about Him, their ears are deaf to what He says, their hearts are as cold as stone to His will- they are dead. So any influence they exert is going to be to influence people to be like they are. They hinder people from passing from death to life. All their conversation, their attitudes, their books, their movies, their newscasts, their journalism, their politics, their commercials – all of it is designed to portray this world as better than what God offers. And that keeps people in a state of spiritual death. And if you prevent people from access to life, what is the difference between you and a murderer? It is actually worse, because spiritual life is far more important than physical life.

The way of Christ
That is the way of Cain. Now let us look at the way of Christ.
Lay down your life
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

When Cain went the way of non-love someone ended up dead – his brother. When Jesus Christ came and showed His way someone ended up dead – and it was Jesus. Hatred lays down the life of your brother. Love lays down your own life.
And that is the example for how we are to live.

16 … And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 

What does that mean? To literally die for someone? Sure, if need be. That is what Christ did. If that is what the situation calls for – yes, go ahead and die for your brother. But I do not think that is primarily what John has in mind. It cannot be the norm in the Christian life to die for a brother. If it were – we would all die for each other and we would all be dead! It is really very rare that anyone ever gets into a situation where they can save a brother’s life by sacrificing his own.

Lay down your life = sacrificing for your brother
And besides that, John is saying that this kind of love is how you know for sure that you are born again. Surely he is not saying you cannot know if you are saved until after you die for someone. So what does John mean by lay down your life? Just look at the very next verse.

17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 

That is how you lay down your life for your brother. You give up what is precious to you to meet his needs, and you love him in your heart and your deeds. When there is a collision of needs or desires or preferences, you lay down your life. You die to yourself. You give up your comfort and your possessions and your rights and your desires in favor of your brother’s. That is the way of Christ.
You might say, “What if I don’t have the resources to help a needy friend?” He needs a huge amount of money and I hardly have anything. That is one reason why we have a benevolence fund, and every first Sunday of the month we have a benevolence offering. Everyone pitches in what they can and it adds up to be enough to meet some significant needs.
And certainly if this applies to material resources it would apply to other resources – like your spiritual gift. So a big part of loving one another is being devoted to your ministry in the church.

Compassion 
So you can help in that way – but the point of this passage goes deeper than just meeting needs. Do you see the word “pity” in verse 17? The literal translation of that is this:

 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but shuts the door of his feelings of compassion for him, how can the love of God be in him? 

The picture is of shutting the door of your compassion. We all do that. You see someone who has a need – a financial need, or they need help with some hard project, or they are really depressed and need hours of encouragement- you see some really needy person and at that moment you are focused on your own stuff and you really do not want to give up what you had planned, and so you just go right inside your heart and slam closed the doorway to your compassion. You just shut it off. You look at that person like an old, hardened ER doctor who has seen so many injuries that he just looks at hurt people as cases to be handled and nothing can reach his feelings of compassion anymore. You just assess the person clinically and say, “Oh, what she needs is this, this, and this” but you guard yourself from feeling anything. I translated the word “feelings of compassion” because it is literally the word for your stomach – your gut – where you feel it physically when you really feel sorry for someone who is hurting. We see someone suffering, and we think it is too much for us to be able to help them, so we just shut the door to our feelings so that we do not have to go through the agony of compassion. And make no mistake – compassion is agony. That is why it causes you to weep with those who weep.
And there are all kinds of reasons why we slam the door of compassion. “I don’t have the resources to be able to help.” Or “He didn’t seem to care when I was suffering, why should I care now?” Or “I’m sure someone else will step in and help.” Or how about this one - “He got himself into this mess – it’s his own fault.” Aren’t you glad Jesus did not think that way?
When we use those excuses we are using the world’s reasoning. We are behaving like atheists. Do you not have the resources to help? Your Father created the universe! Did the person fail to earn your mercy by showing you mercy? All the better! All the more God-like your mercy will be then. You are sure someone else will step in and help? Where is that going to get you on judgment day when God asks you to give an account for why you did not help? Were the priest and the Pharisee innocent because the Good Samaritan finally helped the guy?
He got himself into this mess? It is his own fault? Doesn’t that make him all the more needy? The more needy he is the more compassion it calls for. And so if it is his own fault – that calls for more compassion, not less.
The way of Christ does not give or withhold love based on the person’s worthiness. Nor does the way of Christ dole out love based on how well the other person is showing love.

Humility 
Everywhere you look in Scripture you see the connection between humility and love. They are two sides of the same coin. The world’s “love” is based on pride. The main focus is on me, and how I am being treated. And I will love you, give to you, serve you, be nice to you, show you compassion; but the whole time I am doing all that I have got my eye on the scorecard to see if you are treating me right. And if you aren’t, then I might cut off my acts of love in retaliation, or I might step up my acts of love in order to get you to respond with more love toward me. That second response seems loving, but it is not. It is pure selfishness.
The world loves by making sure there is a give and take relationship. Selfish pride is always pointing out how you are failing to love me properly, and you are not being nice enough in this way and you are not serving me right in that way. That is the way of Cain. Remember, the way of Cain is to lay your brother’s life down. And so in the context of laying down your life in the sense of setting aside your comforts to serve your brother, the way of Cain is to say, “You need to make sure you are treating me good. 
- you sacrifice for me, 
- you give to me, 
- you show love to me, 
- you show compassion and kindness and understanding to me…
(and it can all sound very sanctimonious – “The Bible requires this of you. Darrell said to do this in his sermon last week. It is your Christian duty to love me better.”) If your focus is on whether your brother is laying his life down for you – that is the way of Cain.
When you confront people for their sin, is it usually because of sin against you or others? When people sinned against the Father Jesus rebuked them harshly and became angry and overturned tables. But when they struck Him in the face He opened not His mouth. That is the way of Christ – sensitive to sins against others, overlooks sins against self. That is humility. Ask yourself – When I point out sins in others is it mostly sins against me that I am pointing out? That is pride.
The way of Christ is for you to lay your life down for your brother regardless of whether he deserves it and regardless of whether he is laying his life down for you or not. The way of Cain is the way of pride – “You lay your life down.” The way of Christ is the way of humility and love – “I’ll lay my life down for you.” Either way someone’s life gets laid down.
And if you want a picture of the humility of Christ, the best place to go is Philippians 2.

Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus

So what was Jesus’ attitude in this matter? Did He take the 50-50 approach – you do your share and I will do mine? You love me properly and I will love you properly? Is that the Philippians 2 model?

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. 

It is wrong to treat people as equals. Do not consider others of equal importance with you. If you have an attitude that says, “It is just as important for you to serve me as it is for me to serve you” – that is the way of Cain. The way of Christ is to say, “No – we are not equals – you are more important than me. Your needs are more important than mine. Your comfort is more important than mine. Your desires are more important than mine.”
And so if there is an inequity – if it turns out I am giving a lot more than you are giving – that is great, because that is exactly how it should be! I ought to be giving more than you are giving because you are more important than me. That is the way of Christ.
This is the natural attitude of love. The more you love someone the easier this is. Isn’t there someone you just dearly love and you have the highest regard for, and when you picture that person in your mind right now and think of having this attitude it is a delightful thought?
How about if you take it from the other direction? There is someone in this church, or another church, or in your family (or in your marriage) or somewhere, for whom it is very hard for you to imagine happily laying down your life. That person rubs you the wrong way, irritates you, annoys you, offends you, bugs you, bothers you, hurts you, and the thought of loving that person this way just seems impossible right now.

Conclusion 
I want you to imagine getting a summons from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself to appear before Him (in person) next Sunday morning right here on this stage. So you show up and there He is, in all His infinite glory and splendor. On the drive in you see countless millions of angels and other awesome heavenly beings gathered around for miles and miles around this church shouting praises to the glorified Christ. When you look at His glory it is so staggering that you feel your very existence begin to disintegrate, and you can tell that if it were not for His special power holding you together right now you would go up in a puff of smoke. And it is finally obvious to you how true it is that nothing is better than for Jesus Christ to have this glory and honor. It is the most important thing there is.
And at the same moment your awe and wonder and amazement start to give way to sheer, abject terror, as one by one your sins and guilt start to rise up in your conscience. For the first time in your life you have some idea of the magnitude of your evil and guilt because you can see it as an offense against this amazing glory of Christ. And the horror of your guilt becomes crushing and at that moment you wish you were never born. You realize that nothing would be more fitting than for you to be punished forever in hell.
And at that moment Christ begins to speak. And He says to you, “The reason you feel this way is because I just gave you a glimpse into your own heart. And you beg Him, “Please – shut it off. I can’t stand to look at it. My wickedness and guilt is too much, I can’t stand to see it for another second.” And Jesus says, “Two thousand years ago I looked into the future and saw exactly what you are looking at right now. I saw the galactic sin and guilt in your heart. I saw every sin you would ever commit against Me – even the ones you can’t see now because you haven’t even committed them yet. And even as I raged against you in My wrath, at the same time I had compassion on you. I saw how needy you were of mercy. Most people I send to hell for their sins, but you – I decided to have compassion on you. And so I did what you just did. I took a look at all My infinite glory and splendor and majesty and all these angels shouting praises and took infinite delight in the rightness and goodness of it all, and then I looked at you – at your infinite guilt and unworthiness; and I said to the Father – ‘His need for mercy is more important to Me right now than all this splendor I enjoy and fellowship here with You in heaven.’ And so I gave it all up and took on human flesh and subjected Myself to weakness and pain and sorrow and ridicule and the worst imaginable treatment. And then I gathered up all of your sin and guilt and took it upon My own shoulders and bore the wrath of My Father in ways I could never explain to your finite mind. I did all that, because I decided that your need was more important than My own splendor.”
By this time you are flat on your face on the ground before Him. And he tells you, “Get up.” And as you rise to your feet he calls up that person that you don’t like up to the stage next to you and says to you, “I want you to turn and face that person.” You say, “Yes Lord,” and you turn. And after you look at the person for a few moments the Lord says, “OK, now look back at Me.” Your knees begin to buckle again and He says, “No, stay on your feet and look at Me and listen carefully to what I’m going to say to you.” And you can feel the Holy Spirit propping you up as you tremble in fear before the great King of kings. And then He says your name, and then points to this person you don’t like: “Darrell, that person standing there next to you is more important than you are – do you understand Me?”
And then He holds out His finger and points to the person again and says “Look at him/her.” And you do, but out of the corner of your eye you notice the nail mark in Jesus’ hand. And Jesus says, “I died to purchase that person’s forgiveness. His sin was laid on My back right along with your sin. If you have a problem with that person, you have a problem with Me because I deeply love him and if you love Me you will love Him too. Lay down your life for him for My sake, and I will repay you 1000 times for everything you give up.”
Beloved, we are the children of God. There is nothing for us in the way of Cain. And there is everything for us in the way of Christ.

Benediction: Ro.15:5,6 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, 6 so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Overcoming Evil: Part 11 Self-Condemnation 3:19-20 

Summary: Self-condemnation is bad because it hinders intimacy with God (in particular, prayer). Self-condemnation is not the work of conscience (a good thing), but an overall negative assessment of how you are doing that drives you away from God or causes resentment. It is emotional. The solution is to convince your heart that the standard for pleasing God is identical to the standard for proving salvation, and God’s assessment trumps yours, and that He knows things you don’t know (in your favor).

Introduction:
The Stakes (Why self-condemnation is bad)
The importance of boldness/confidence
The Problem (self-condemnation)
The Solution (Convincing your heart)
How to convince your heart
1 God is greater than your heart
2 God knows everything
Counter-grace?

19 This then is how we will know that we are of the truth, and how we will convince our hearts in his presence 20 that if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing before him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands remain in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he remains in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Introduction: 
Review – the ways of Cain and Christ
Last week John showed us two paths you can take in life – the way of Christ or the way of Cain. The way of Christ is to lay down your life for your brother. You give up your preferences, your comforts, your desires, and your rights in favor of his. You worry about whether you are loving him properly, not about whether he is loving you properly.
The way of Cain is the opposite. When you are careful to make sure others are properly serving and loving and laying down their lives for you – that is the way of Cain. That is the way the world loves, and it is evidence that a person is of Satan and not of God. And besides that it is really a miserable way to live. People like that come to the church all the time (although they almost never stay long). They show up here with all kinds of horror stories about how badly they treated at their last 12 churches. And after several weeks they are gone because everyone here is so unloving too. Someone failed to greet them properly, or said something they didn’t like, or didn’t come visit them, or whatever. And they go from church to church and wonder why they can’t find anyplace where people are loving. And it is the same with their relationships. They go from friend to friend (and sometimes from spouse to spouse), and they can not figure out why everyone is so mean to them.
When your focus is on how well you are being loved rather than on how well you are loving, you will be miserable. You will constantly see flaws in people’s love, and will be constantly discouraged. And on top of that, you will be such an unpleasant person to be around that people really will not like you much, which will just confirm all your feelings. Selfish, self-centered people are the hardest people to love. They are like leaches that just drain everyone around them dry, but are never satisfied.
That is the way of Cain and it is the characteristic of people who do not know God. The characteristic of a true child of God is someone who lays his own life down for others, and he does not slam the door of his compassion closed when others are in need.

Deuteronomy 15:7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.

We must not only share, but we must do so with a free, openhanded, softhearted, eager, generous, joyful attitude – and that applies to our money, our possessions, our time, our energy, our prayers, and especially our spiritual gift and ministry. That is the most important way to show love – through your ministry in the church.
That kind of love is the mark of a true Christian. And we all fall short of it. But when we fall short, the Holy Spirit convicts us and shows us our sin, and gives us the opportunity to repent. And a true Christian will take that opportunity. A phony Christian will do what Cain did and continue to cling to his sin until God gives him over to be manhandled by temptation and plunge into further sin. But a true Christian, deep down, loves the will of God so when he falls into sin he grieves over it and resolves to do anything he can do to avoid it in the future whatever the cost. Live like that and you can be assured that you are a child of God.
The problem of self-condemnation
But for some people, becoming convinced of the genuineness of their salvation is not all that comforting. Some of you walked out of here last Sunday fully convinced of your salvation, and yet full of even more sorrow and grief than you had before you heard the sermon. When you hear about God’s standards of love they are so high that it is easy to fall into a pit of self-condemnation - not about whether or not you are saved, but about how well you are doing in living the Christian life. You know you are saved, but the failures in your life are so many and so serious that you just feel totally defeated. A number of you have said to me that it is almost impossible for you to think of God as being pleased with you. Your whole Christian life is almost a steady state of guilt feelings and self-condemnation.
And how can it be otherwise? If God is displeased with sin, and I sin over and over every single day – how could I ever imagine that God could be pleased with me? We know for a fact that God is sometimes displeased even with His own children. And so if that is possible, isn’t it possible for Him to be displeased with me a whole lot of the time – or even most of the time?
What should we do with self-condemnation? Is it a good thing? A bad thing? Neutral? Can it be useful? Or should we fight against it?
Some people believe it is a useful, good thing. In fact, it is their main strategy for attaining greater success in the Christian life. Beat myself up over my sin, feel really bad all the time, and maybe that will get me to finally change. So that kind of person is not even looking for a solution to the problem.
It’s a bad thing
In this text John talks about two possible circumstances for the Christian. Verse 20 talks about if our hearts condemn us, and verse 21 talks about if our hearts do not condemn us. In verses 19-20 John tells us that if our hearts condemn us we need to do something about our hearts. Some translations say “set it at ease,” others say, “convince your heart,” but either way it is presented as a problem that needs to be fixed. So having a condemning heart is not a good thing.
On the other hand, look at verse 21.
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask

That sounds to me like John is saying that is a good thing. Self-condemnation is a problem that needs to be solved. 

The Stakes (Why self-condemnation is bad)
But why is that? Why is it so important? John is very concerned with assurance throughout this book. But it is not just for the sake of your psychological comfort. It is not just that God wants to protect you from a feeling of uneasiness. There is a lot more at stake than just that. The reason assurance is so important is because of the role that it plays in your fellowship with God.
Hinders fellowship (prayer)
Before we talk about exactly what John means by self-condemnation, and how to solve the problem of self-condemnation, let’s peek ahead to the end of the passage where we find out why this is so important.

21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask

John points to your prayer life as the reason why this is important. If you have an attitude of self-condemnation – if you are constantly mired in guilt all the time, that will ruin your prayer life. In order for your prayer life to be as God wants it to be you have to approach Him with confidence. If you are not approaching God with the proper confidence, your prayer life is messed up. And I am convinced that John is using your prayer life here as the barometer for your entire relationship with God. Prayer is the primary way that you interact with God, so that is what he zeros in on, but really, if you do not have the proper confidence in approaching God it will mess up all of your fellowship and communion and interactions with God. 

The importance of boldness/confidence 
John is going to bring this up again in chapter 4 and again in chapter 5.

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

And we see the same emphasis elsewhere in the New Testament. Jesus devoted a whole parable to teach us to pray with confidence and boldness (Lk.11:8).

2 Corinthians 3:4 We have such confidence through Christ before God.

Ephesians 3:12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Hebrews 3:14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence

Hebrews 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus … let us draw near

 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

Why is this such a big deal? It is a big deal because the biggest deal there is in the Christian life is what Jesus called the greatest commandment – love God with all your being. And self-condemnation hinders a love relationship. If all your prayers are nothing but, “Oh God I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’m such a jerk…” – that does not lend itself to an intimate relationship. You do not want people to talk to you that way, right? If they sin against you, do you want them to confess? Yes. Do you want them to acknowledge how serious their sin was? Yes. Do you want them to demonstrate appropriate contrition and do all they can to make things right? Yes. But then after they have done all that and you have forgiven them and your relationship is restored, do you want them to keep harping on it and constantly condemning themselves and making it sound like you are constantly condemning them? No. Once you have forgiven them you don’t want them to keep bringing it up. And if they do keep bringing it up it implies that you have not really forgiven them.
I dearly love my wife so I do not want anyone tearing her down – not you, not a stranger, not my kids, not even her. I do not enjoy hearing someone I love tear herself down because love does not like hearing the object of its affection being torn down. God does not enjoy hearing you torn down – not even by your own mouth.
There are a whole lot of things God wants you to talk to Him about. And there are things He wants to show you in His Word. He wants you to talk to Him about some things, and He wants you to listen as He opens your eyes to various insights, and if you are stuck dwelling on past sin incessantly, it stalls all that out. You cannot move ahead and make progress with the relationship-building type things that should take place in prayer and study of Scripture, because you are so focused on self-condemnation. And when you do that you make it sound like God also feels that way about you, and so it is slander against a forgiving God.
So, why is it important to conquer this problem of self-condemnation? You need to do it in order to unclog the flow of loving, relational interaction between you and God. And when that happens, 

21 if our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God, 22 and receive whatever we ask from Him 
Resentment leading to paralysis 
But on the other hand, if you do not conquer the problem of self-condemnation, it will destroy your intimacy with God. Living under the feeling of constant disappointment in God’s eyes will eventually start to cause resentment in your heart toward God. It will start to seem to you like He is a hard master – impossible to please, and unreasonable in His demands. You won’t think that in your mind, but that is how your heart will start to feel toward Him. And once you start feeling that way toward Him – like He is a hard master, the effect will not be greater godliness on your part. The effect will not be that you will be motivated to defeat sin in your life. The effect will be spiritual paralysis. 
Remember the lazy servant in Matthew 25 who buried his talent in the ground instead of putting it to work for his master? What was the cause of his laziness and spiritual paralysis? 

Matthew 25:24-26 Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, … 25 So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' 26 "His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! 

Thinking of God as a hard master saps your energy and strength and motivation and causes spiritual paralysis and laziness. It causes a latent, underlying resentment toward God that makes you not care as much about advancing His kingdom, which in turn makes you unwilling to take any risks. You just bury what you have in the ground and coast because you are so afraid of messing up. When you think of God as hard you will be afraid to ever step out into any ministry because you are paralyzed by fear that you will fall short of what God requires. You cannot live under constant, ongoing, unrelenting accusation and condemnation without eventually starting to feel resentment.
So all that is what is at stake in this matter of your assurance before God. So now that we understand the stakes, and how important this is, let’s dig a little deeper into the problem.

The Problem (self-condemnation)
Attacked by your own heart
In this study of overcoming evil we have talked about the various enemies you have to fight against. You have to fight against your own flesh. You have to fight against Satan. You have to fight against the world. But now we find one more opponent who is going to attack you. While you are busy fighting against the world, the flesh, and the devil, the fourth threat arises and attacks you – your own heart. Verse 19 tells us what to do when our own hearts condemn us. The word “Satan” means “accuser.” Accusing is such a perfect description of what he does that that is what God named him. And so when your heart condemns you, your heart is doing the work of the devil. And when that happens you need to fight back even against your own, traitorous heart.

Not referring to the work of conscience 
So the problem is self-condemnation, but what does John mean by that term exactly? We need to be very careful here because we know that there is a good kind of self-accusation. Your conscience is a gift from God. It is not self-condemnation every time you feel bad because of wrongdoing. You should always feel bad when you do wrong – that is a good thing. If you are distressed because of repeated failures and defeats in your walk, that is appropriate. If your response to your own sin is like Peter’s, where you go out and weep bitterly, or like David’s where you cry out in agony saying, “I was sinful from birth - my sin is ever before me…” – that is a good thing. The only thing more wicked than sin is remorseless sin.
Condemnation that hinders intimacy
So the self-condemnation that John is talking about in this passage is not the normal workings of a sensitive conscience. A healthy conscience will inflict pain on you that is designed to drive you back to God in repentance.

2 Corinthians 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

There is a good way to grieve over sin and a bad way. The good way drives you back to God in repentance; the bad way drives you away from God. The kind of self-condemnation John is talking about here is an evaluation of yourself that gives you a sense that God is constantly displeased with you.
This is not the same word for condemnation that Paul uses in Romans, or that Jesus used. The idea is not so much that your heart is telling you that you are going to hell. It is just a nagging, depressing, discouraging feeling that God is mostly unhappy with you.
Emotions
John locates the problem in the heart. Most of the time when John refers to the heart he is speaking of the seat of the emotions. For example, in John 14 when Jesus said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” When you are emotionally troubled, it is your heart that experiences that feeling. This bad kind of self-condemnation is mostly an issue of how you feel. You feel like a failure. In your mind you understand all about forgiveness and your acceptance in Christ and all that. But when you step back and make an overall, generalized assessment of your life – as a whole what you see is mostly failure.
And all these sermons from 1 John about assurance of salvation are not much comfort to you, because it is not that you are doubting your salvation. You are fairly certain that you are a Christian. It is just that you feel like a terrible Christian. You can tell yourself that you have forgiveness, and think about God’s forgiveness until you are blue in the face and you still feel condemned. 

The Solution (Convincing your heart)
So what is the solution to self-condemnation? How do you solve this problem? Self-forgivenss? The world says the solution to that is self-forgiveness. And many people in the church have taught that as well. “God has forgiven you; now you need to learn to forgive yourself. You are too hard on yourself – learn to forgive yourself!”
There are at least three problems with that. First, the Bible does not say that. Nowhere in the Bible does it tell us to forgive ourselves. It is an idea that comes from human psychological theorizing and not from God.
A second reason why it does not work is because when your friends tell you, “Hey, you’re too hard on yourself” – deep down in your heart you know they do not know what they are talking about. They only say that because they only see the tip of the iceberg of your sin. And if they knew the whole story they would probably say you are not hard enough on yourself.
And a third problem with the idea of forgiving yourself is the fact that self-forgiveness is nonsense. People who talk about self-forgiveness do not understand what forgiveness even is. Forgiveness is the canceling of a debt. A person owes you something, and instead of demanding satisfaction, you just cancel the debt and absorb the loss yourself. If you own me $100, and I forgive the debt that means you don’t have to pay me the $100, and I just absorb the loss. So how do you forgive yourself? If I owe myself $100 and I cancel the debt, I have not done anything. You cannot forgive yourself because you cannot owe yourself. To forgive yourself would mean letting yourself off the hook with yourself, and yourself absorbs the loss in place of yourself, so yourself no longer owes the debt, but if it is absorbed by yourself, then even though yourself is now off the hook, the debt is still on the shoulders of yourself since by forgiving you took it upon yourself. And if you think any of that makes any sense you are wrong – it is absolute nonsense.
The idea of forgiving yourself is just a misuse of language – it has no actual meaning. Psychobabble dressed up as wisdom is nothing but hot air and it will do nothing to help you with the problem of self-condemnation. 
Convince your heart
So what is the solution to self-condemnation?

19 This then is how we will know that we are of the truth, and how we will convince our hearts in his presence 

“This.” How do you solve the problem of your self-condemning heart? “This.” What does John mean by “this”? It points backward to what he has been talking about – namely, proving that you are genuinely saved through a life of love. You do not find confidence of God’s pleasure in you through getting really high grades in the Christian life. You do not quiet an accusing heart by finding yourself in the 80th percentile of saints. You find confidence of God’s pleasure in you through becoming convinced that you are truly saved.
Now, some of you hear that and say, “But it’s not working. I’m confident that I’m saved, yet I still have this problem of my heart condemning me all the time. So now what?” Let me ask you two questions. First, if you are sure you are a child of God – what is the basis for that certainty? There is some standard in your heart for what enables a person to be sure he or she is saved – what is the standard in your heart that you meet, convincing yourself that you are saved?
Now let me ask the second question. There is some standard in your heart for what it would take to please God. If your heart feels like you are falling short of pleasing God, then you must have some idea of what it is that pleases God – what is it? How good a Christian would you have to be?
OK, so I have asked you two questions: 1) What is your basis for believing that you are saved, and 2) what is your basis for feeling you don’t please God? If you are sure you are saved, but do not feel like you please God, then that means you feel that you have met the standards for proving your salvation, but you have not quite met the standards for pleasing God.
Now, let’s take a look at what the standards for those two things actually are. First, what is the standard for proving you are a genuinely born-again child of God?

14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. 

That could not be more clear. The standard for proving that you are saved is love – do you love the people Christ loves because Christ loves them? And when you fail to do that, do you take the way of Cain and cling to your sin rather than repent? Or do you repent and turn back to God when you fail to love? If you live a life of love and repent over failures to love, you are a child of God. You have met that standard.
Now, let’s take a look at the second standard. Now that you are sure you are saved, what is the standard for pleasing God? Now that you are accepted into the school, how do you get A’s on your report card? How do you get up into that group of people that God is pleased with rather than being displeased? What is the standard for that? The answer to that question starts down in verse 22. That verses speaks directly to the issue of pleasing God.

22 we receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 

Pleasing Him and keeping His commands go together – the way to please Him is to keep His commands. So, what is His command?

23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 

So the answer to the second question - what is the standard for pleasing God and getting A’s on your report card and being a really good Christian that God is delighted with? Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and through that faith live a life of love.
Do you see the point John is making? What is the standard for proving you are saved? Faith and love. What is the standard for pleasing God? Faith and love. The two standards are exactly the same.
If you are convinced that you are saved but feel you fall short of pleasing God, that means you think the standard for pleasing God is something different from the standard for proving you are saved. Either your standard for proving salvation is too low, or your standard for pleasing God is too high. But John’s point in this passage is that they are exactly the same. And that is why all you have to do to solve the problem of self-condemnation is figure out whether or not you are saved. The moment you know for sure you are saved, you have also settled the question of whether you please God, because the fruits of salvation are what please Him.
If you are a believer, God is pleased with you. Are there some occasions where a certain amount of displeasure is mixed in? Yes. But even in those moments God is still mostly pleased and only partially displeased. And those moments are exceptions, not the rule. 

Psalm 30:5 his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime

God is much, much more pleased with you than He is displeased.
Should we strive to avoid His displeasure as much as possible? Yes.

Ephesians 5:10 and find out what pleases the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:9 We make it our goal to please Him.

We should indeed strive to please Him and to avoid displeasing Him. But we must never come to the conclusion that the overall assessment of our lives is one of mostly displeasure from God.

How to convince your heart
“But how could that be true? How could it possibly be true that God is mostly pleased with me given all my failures and sins? And how do I convince my heart that that is true? The word translated set your hearts at ease in the NIV normally means “to convince.” This is an incredibly difficult passage to translate. Of all the many possibilities, I think the one that is most likely what John meant is this one:

19 This then is how we will know that we are of the truth, and how we will convince our hearts in his presence 20 that if our hearts condemn us, (we convince our hearts) that God is greater than our hearts and he knows all things.

The solution to a self-condemning heart is to convince it of two things: That God is greater than your heart, and
God knows all things.

1 God is greater than your heart
You have to convince yourself that God is greater than your heart. When your feelings say one thing and God’s Word says something different, God’s Word is right and your heart is wrong. God’s assessment trumps yours. If His Word says He is pleased and if your heart wants to argue with that your heart is just wrong – period, because God’s assessment trumps your own heart’s assessment. 
We tell unbelievers that on the negative side. They say, “Oh, I’m sure God won’t send me to hell. I just feel it in my heart.” Well, God’s Word trumps what you feel in your heart, and He says that all unbelievers will be sent to hell. But it works the other way too. If your heart tries to condemn you when God is not condemning you, your heart loses that argument.
You are watching your child grow up, and he takes his very first steps, and you get all excited – you are clapping your hands and giving him a big hug and you call your husband and say, “He walked!!!” And then your child says, “No mom – it’s not fitting that you should be pleased with me. I only made it three steps and then fell in a heap. Plus, other children have walked months sooner than I did. The fact is I am displeased with myself, and so should you be.”
You would want to say, “Look – I’ll decide what I’m pleased with and what I’m not pleased with.” And you are not even God. In your case, the child might actually be right – maybe your standards are messed up. But that is never the case with God. His standards are as perfect as they can be.
And according to His standards, He is delighted with you.

Isaiah 62:5 as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.

Zephaniah 3:17 He will take great delight in you … he will rejoice over you with singing.

He delights in you because you love Him enough to love His people.
And He also delights in you because of your repentance when you fail to love as you should. Repentance is a big part of what ignites love in the heart of God for you. Psalm 45 is a psalm about the Messiah, and in verse 10 the psalmist speaks to the Messiah’s bride (that’s us). Look at what the Lord says to the Messiah’s bride:

Psalms 45:10 Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father's house 11 and the king will be enthralled by your beauty

If you turn your back on your old life and your old world and turn toward Him (that is repentance), that makes you attractive to Him. On our wedding day the fact that Tracy was choosing me above every other man in the world made her that much more attractive to me. And it is the same with the Lord Jesus Christ. Our repentance and turning our back on this world in favor of Him – every time we do it, it causes Him to be, in the words of the holy Scriptures, “enthralled” by our beauty.

2 God knows everything

And so the first solution to self-condemnation is to convince your heart that God is greater than your heart, and His standards are exactly right. The second thing you need to convince your heart of is that God knows everything. “What?! That is the whole problem! That doesn’t bring me any comfort! That just means He sees all my sin. If I spend much time thinking about that I’ll REALLY get depressed.” How does God’s knowledge of everything about me help with the problem of self-condemnation?
Well, for one thing, God knows about your repentance. God knows when there is love in your heart for Him even in those moments when the tears of sorrow and guilt and regret blind your eyes to the genuineness of your love for God.

John 21:17 The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" …He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." 

Peter could not really point to his recent actions to prove his love, so he appealed to the fact that Jesus knows all things. He could not prove to anyone else on the planet at that moment that his repentance was real, but he could prove it to Jesus just by saying, “You know all things.”
And beyond that, there are some things God knows that your heart does not know. And those things cause God to have more pleasure in you than you would expect. Maybe the toddler thinks you should not be impressed because he took two months longer to learn to walk than his sister. But what he does not know is that he had an injury or a birth defect that his sister didn’t have, and the doctors didn’t expect him to walk for another six months. God knows all kinds of stuff that you don’t know. He knows how much grace He granted for you to fight a particular temptation. He knows how much leash He has given Satan to go after you in a particular moment. He knows the effect of the combination of contributing factors has on you.
Those are a few things I can suggest, but most of what He knows that you do not know are things I can’t tell you because I don’t know them either! But I can tell you that all this stuff that He knows and that you don’t know are reasons He has to be pleased with you. You can make assessments about whether a particular thing is sin or not sin. But you do not have enough information to make an overall assessment of your Christian life. You do not have enough information to measure how you are doing as a servant of God overall.

1 Corinthians 4:3 I care very little if I am judged by you … indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God. 

It is possible that you are worse than you think and it is possible that you are better than you think. You just do not know and you cannot know until Judgment Day.
“But wait a minute – don’t I need to assess how well I’m doing so I can shore up weaknesses and capitalize on and rejoice over strengths?” Yes! Absolutely. Do not ever get to a point when you are not making assessments on how you are doing in your walk with the Lord. And do not ever ignore the pangs of conscience. It is good to discern areas of weakness or strength for the purpose of growth. But it is not good to base your feelings about your relational status before God on your overall assessment of how well you are doing. Yes, there must be introspection and self-evaluation. Like Paul you should make it your goal to please Him. And if something is interfering with that, it is good to discover that and do something about it.
How to spot the bad kind
“So how do I know if my self-evaluation is the good kind or the bad kind?” When your self-assessment leads to spiritual growth that is good. But when your self-assessment leads to discouragement or alienation from God or spiritual paralysis that is bad.
“I’m not discouraged because I think God is displeased with me. I’m just irritated at myself for being such a failure.” Well, maybe you have failed. But if that as the case, isn’t God’s approval of you enough to comfort you through that trial? Is your problem so severe that not even the approval of God is enough to comfort you? That can only mean that you value your own heart’s assessment more than God’s. You see why John says the solution is to convince your heart that God is greater than your heart?
The issue is not your assessment, but God’s. That is why John keeps pointing us to God’s judgment in this passage.

19 This then is … how we will convince our hearts in his presence 

20 God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 

21 if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 

22 we keep his commands and do what is pleasing before him.

In his presence, before Him, in His opinion, in His judgment – that is all that matters.
So the next time your heart tries to tell you, “I feel condemned” – you answer right back to your heart and say, “I don’t care what you think – I care what God says. If you feel condemned, you’re wrong. So cut it out and get your affections in line with what God says, because God is smarter than you.” Sometimes we need to preach to our own hearts.

Counter-grace?
It sounds like the false teachers back then were saying the same thing they say today - that if works are connected to salvation in any way, then you can never have assurance or comfort. You can never know if you have done enough good works. And that would be true if your salvation and favor with God had to be earned. But it was purchased for you by Christ. It is a gift. And so once you establish that you have it – that you have received this gift – you should not live in constant self-condemnation, because the proof that you have received the gift is that you love brothers and sisters in Christ. And when you fail, you repent – the very things that win God’s approval and delight.
True repentance
“But what if I’m not sure I’m repentant? I say I’m sorry, and I resolve not to do it anymore, but my remorse is slim to none, and maybe I’m not taking drastic enough steps to change. How do I know for sure?” Well, have you left the door open to return to that sin? Is there some step you could take – some drastic step that would make it less likely that you would fall into that sin again – but you are unwilling to take that step? Then you have not repented.
True repentance is when you hate your sin. When you leave the door back to that sin cracked open, you do that because you love that sin more than you desire nearness to Christ. So if there is any doubt in your mind, take more drastic steps.
His command – faith & love
“OK, what if I apply all of John’s tests and it turns out there isn’t much proof that I’m truly saved?” Then you need verse 23.

23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

Place all your trust in Him, and you will be born again. And you will find love in your heart for His people that is totally different from anything you have ever known before.

Overcoming Evil: Part 12 Confident Prayer 3:21-23

Summary: God promises freedom to speak freely in His presence and answers to our prayers if we overcome self-condemnation. (The promise for answered prayer is limited to prayers that can fit into His perfect plan.) Along with the other conditions for answered prayer in Scripture (asking, persistence, faith, wholeheartedness, proper motive, and, mostly, righteousness – especially love) John adds overcoming self-condemnation. The reason it works is because of love. God is inclined to answer the prayers of those who love (He loves helping you love).

Introduction:
The Promises (confidence and answered prayer)
1)	Confidence before God
2)	Answered prayer
What about when God doesn’t give us what we request?
Does not include bad things
Does not include anything outside God’s perfect plan
Desire and Decision
A disappointment?
The possible
Treasuring God’s plan
But won’t He just do His plan anyway?
Within His plan we get whatever we ask for
No limit on how much
The Condition
Prayer
Persistence
Faith
Wholehearted seeking
Non-adulterous motive
Righteousness
Especially love
Reason
It removes the only hindrance
He loves helping you love
Love loves loving
Conclusion
Devotionals
Desire and Decision
Prayer
Persistence
Faith
Wholehearted seeking
Non-adulterous motive
Righteousness
Especially love

19 This then is how we will know that we are of the truth, and how we will convince our hearts in his presence 20 that if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 
21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing before him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands remain in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he remains in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Introduction: 

We come to a passage this morning in which John makes two of the most staggering, amazing, encouraging promises imaginable. 

The Promises (confidence and answered prayer)
If we do what John is calling us to do we will get these two wonderful promises. So first let’s look at those promises, and then we will take a look at what we have to do to get those promises. 
Confidence before God
The first promise is in verse 21.

21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God

The first promise John offers us is confidence before God in prayer. That word means to be able to speak freely. To be comfortable and at ease before God so that you can freely pour out whatever is on your heart. When your conscience is not clear, and you do not have a sense that God is pleased with you, that hinders your ability to speak freely before God.
Usually when we drift away from God and fall into sin, we do not want to talk to God or even think about Him. The way back to Him is through repentance, and true repentance is painful, so we are tempted to just put it out of our minds and get on with our day. And when we do that what we are saying is, “I’m content to remain at odds with God. I’m fine with staying at arm’s length for a little while. I don’t have the time or energy right now to deal with repentance.”
Have you ever been in that kind of mentality, and then something comes up that makes you want to cry out to God for help, but you are reluctant because you are not really very close with Him? You are sort of postponing dealing with some sin and then all of the sudden the phone rings and it’s the doctor with the cancer test results. And your first impulse is to think, “Oh dear God, please let the test be negative!” But then you realize – “Oh, I’ve been holding God at arm’s length. I’m not really in a position to be asking for special blessings right now. I’ve sinned against Him and haven’t really repented and I’ve been content to just be distant from Him for now. You feel like if you are going to go before God in prayer you should begin by dealing with your sin and not with asking for favors.
It is a horrible feeling to have the sense that you are not free to ask anything of God because of alienation from Him or because of a guilty conscience. And the first of the two incentives that God places before us in this text is the amazing privilege of being able to speak freely before Him – to have confidence before Him, so that you do not have to hesitate to come boldly into His presence and ask for whatever is on your heart. That is huge. That is a big time, heavyweight, major league kind of promise.
And you can have that, if verse 21 is an “if – then” statement. If you fulfill the condition, then you get the benefits. 
Answered prayer
But before we look at the condition, let’s take a look at the second benefit. The first one is confidence before God – the second one is in verse 22.

21 … we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask(1)

Wow! That is another colossus of a benefit! 

What about when God doesn’t give us what we request?

The first promise is we get to come boldly and confidently before God. The second promise is we receive whatever we ask for in prayer.
So, here John goes again. Just about every week John hits us with a statement that sounds ridiculous when we first hear it. I mean, honestly, is there anyone here who gets everything you ask for in prayer?
Does not include bad things
Who would even want that? Wouldn’t that be more of a curse than a blessing? When you pray, “Dear Lord, please let me hit this green light” – do you want Him to grant that request even if He knows it means you will get hit by a drunk driver and be a vegetable the rest of your life? Or worse than that – it would result in being faced with some temptation and falling into some sin you otherwise would not fall into? When you ask for something that you think would be good, but in the long run it turns out it would have been very bad – do you want Him to say yes to that? We constantly ask for things that would be terrible to get. And it is God’s mercy and love and kindness to us that says “no” to those prayers.
So what on earth does John mean when he says that we receive whatever we ask for in prayer? How extensive is that word, “whatever”? Did John intend that in an absolute sense – absolutely anything you ask for you get?
I believe one of the reasons John makes statements like this is to force us to stop and think deeply about it. So let’s think this through. Given what we know from John, should we assume that he meant the term “whatever” to include even bad things? If I pray for God to do something wrong – something evil – something contrary to His nature, will He do it? Obviously not. I think we are safe in assuming that John is not suggesting that God could cease to be God - which is exactly what He would have to do if He were to grant our requests when we ask for things that are not what is best.
Does not include anything outside God’s perfect plan
But what about when we are praying for something we know for sure is God’s will? God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Pe.3:9). So if you are praying for the salvation of a loved one, you know you are praying for what God desires. So why is it that we can pray for someone’s salvation and that person ends up dying as an unbeliever? We know it is God’s will that we should be holy (1 Thes.4:3). So why do we pray for victory over some sin only to fall right into defeat? I pray for God to use my sermons to comfort troubled hearts, and yet very often people are more troubled after the sermon than before. What about when you pray for insight and understanding, and then open your Bible and can’t make heads or tails out of anything? Why is it that God does not answer our prayers even when we are praying for things He already said are His will? One part of the answer to that lies in understanding the word “will.” That word is used more than one way in the Bible. 1 Peter 3:9 says it is not God’s will that anyone should perish. 

1 Samuel 2:25 [Eli’s] sons did not listen … for it was the LORD's will to put them to death.

God did not grant them repentant hearts because it was his will for them to perish. So how can Peter say it is not God’s will for anyone to perish and yet Samuel says it was God’s will for Eli’s sons to perish?
Desire and Decision
Obviously the word “will” is being used in two different ways. Sometimes that word refers to the decision-making faculty and other times it refers to desire. The reason the Bible can say something is God’s will and is not God’s will at the same time is because some things are God’s desire that are not His decision. What God desires and what He decides to do are not always the same. God does not desire that any should perish. But He does decide to allow many (in fact, most) to perish. Whenever you see a passage of Scripture that speaks of God’s will, try filling in the word “desire” and then try filling in the word “decision” or “plan” and see which one is called for by the context.
When your child disobeys, is it your will to punish him? Yes and no. It is not your desire, in the sense that it is something you enjoy. So if you are speaking of the will of desire then the answer is no, it is not your will to punish him. But if you are speaking of the will of decision or plan, then the answer may be yes. You may very well decide to punish him because you know it is best for your child – even though you do not enjoy doing so. God is the same way.

Lamentations 3:32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. 33 For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

He brings affliction and grief. God does that. Sometimes people want to say, “No – God does not cause my suffering – He just allows it.” But this verse is very clear that God causes it. The Lord brings affliction and grief. That is His decision – His plan.
However, verse 33 says He does not do it willingly (lit. “from the heart”). In other words, He does not like doing it. It is not His desire. It is like you spanking your kids. It is not your desire but it is your decision.
Now, back to John’s promise. The promise is that we will receive whatever we ask for in prayer. He repeats that same promise in chapter 5, but there he states what is only implied in chapter 3 – that it has to be according to God’s will.
1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

The way to clear up the confusion on this is simply to understand which kind of will he is talking about. Is he saying we will get whatever we ask for as long as it is according to God’s desire? No. God does not even give Himself everything He desires. It is not talking about His will of desire; it is talking about His will of decision, or plan. If we ask for something that can fit into God’s perfect plan, then He will grant it.
A disappointment?
Does that strike you as a disappointment? Is this like the fine print that makes the promise meaningless? Kind of like God is saying, “I’ll give you absolutely anything you pray for (oh - except for 99% of the things you want”). There are at least two reasons why this should not be a disappointment to us.
The possible
First, when God promises to answer all our prayers, but then the fine print says, “except for things that don’t fit into God’s perfect plan,” that is the same as saying, “I will answer all your prayers except for nonsense prayers.” We would not expect God to answer nonsense prayers, right? If you said, “Dear God, please, please doorknob, Corn Flakes, pushing to the limit starlight and mules for 16 minutes underneath 25 purple and green presidential elections – please!” If you made a request like that, would you expect God to say yes? There is nothing to say yes to, because the request is without any meaning. It is just nonsensical misuse of language.
And asking God to do something outside His perfect plan is just as nonsensical. And here is why: Is God perfect? (Yes.) Would it be possible for God to do something that was not perfect? (No.) So when I pray for God to do something outside of His perfect plan – something that would not ultimately be the best thing, I am praying for the impossible. I am praying nonsense. Because praying for God to do something other than what is best would be to pray for God to make a mistake. That is like praying for God to become a liar or to get confused or to commit sin. It is nonsense, because if God were capable of doing any of that He would not be God.
It is impossible for God to make a mistake. Which means, when Jesus said, “If it be Your will” (if it can fit into Your plan) that was exactly the same as saying “If it be possible.” “If it be Your will” = “If it be possible” If there is no way a request can fit into God’s perfect plan, then that request is impossible because it would require God to make a mistake. (Because anything other than God’s perfect plan is a mistake.) And you can see that by comparing Luke’s account of Jesus’ prayer in the Garden with Matthew’s.

Luke 22:42 Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me

Matthew 26:39 My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. 

“If You are willing” and “If it is possible” are exactly the same thing.

Matthew 26:42 He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

Now remember – this is the will of God’s plan, not the will of God’s desire. Is it possible for God to do things that go against what He desires? Yes. But is it possible for Him to do something outside of His perfect plan? No. So praying for God to step outside of His plan is like praying for a square circle or a married bachelor, or that prayer I mentioned a minute ago with all the random words that had no meaning – it is nonsense. Praying for God to make a mistake is nonsense. So it should not be too much of a disappointment when we see the promise that God will answer all our prayers, and then the fine print say, “Oh, except for nonsense prayers when you pray for God to make a mistake, because it is impossible for God to make a mistake.”
Treasuring God’s plan
So that is the first reason why the fine print should not be a disappointment to us. But on top of that there is a second reason why this should not disappoint us. And that is the simple fact that God’s perfect plan is…(are you ready for this?) … a perfect plan! God has a plan that He decided on before the foundation of the world. It is what He has decided to do – His will of decision. And if it is true that God is perfectly good and infinitely wise and powerful, then that plan is the best of all possible scenarios.
As Christians, if there is one thing that is true about us it is this – we love God and we trust God, right? That is the essence of what it means to be a Christian – to love Him and trust Him. And so if we love Him and trust Him, what could be more delightful to us than His perfect plan? If you love God and trust God you will have an attitude that treasures His plan above all. If you believe the Bible at all, and if you trust God at all, and if you have any love for Him at all, then you would never say, “God, please do this thing even if it is contrary to Your perfect plan.” If you truly believe that His perfect plan is best, why would you want anything else?
The perfect example of that, of course, is Jesus. Jesus taught us how to treasure God’s perfect plan above all. Look at His prayer one more time:

Luke 22:42 Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.

Jesus was saying, “If there is any way to fit My request into Your perfect plan, please do so. But if there is no way, then I desire Your perfect plan more than I desire this thing I’m requesting.”
And if you pray that way then you will always get what you want the most. If what you want the most is God’s perfect plan, and God is guaranteed to always carry out His perfect plan, then you always get what you want the most. And if there is ever a moment when you want your request more than you want God’s perfect plan; if you think this thing you are requesting would be better than God’s perfect plan, then obviously you trust your own judgment more than you trust God’s. And if you do not trust God then you do not have faith. And God does not answer prayers that are devoid of faith.

But won’t He just do His plan anyway?
So the promise to give us whatever we ask for in prayer is limited to the realm of God’s perfect plan. But that brings up another question. If it is impossible for God to do anything outside of His perfect plan, why pray at all? If He cannot step outside of His plan, then He is going to do what He is going to do regardless of what we pray for – right? So why pray?
Some answer that question by saying, “The reason we pray is not to change what God is going to do, but rather to get ourselves in line with His will.” That sounds good at first, but it is not a biblical answer. Scripture is very clear that prayer does change what God is going to do. Many times in Scripture God was going to do one thing, then someone prayed, and in response to that God did something other than what He was originally going to do. Prayer is not just to align your heart with what God is already going to do. Prayer has an effect on what God decides to do. 

James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Prayer works!
But how can that be? If God never departs from His perfect plan, how can prayer have any effect at all? The answer is, it is very often God’s perfect plan to do one thing if we pray and a different thing if we fail to pray. It might be God’s plan to send someone to hell for eternity if you fail to pray for him, but for him to be saved if you do pray for him. Over and over in Scripture we read that we are to pray for a certain thing so that that thing will happen. Not so that we will get our hearts ready for what was already going to happen, but so that what was already going to happen won’t happen and something else will happen instead.
When Joshua prayed for the sun to stand still, it happened. “But wouldn’t that have happened anyway?” No. We know it would not have happened had Joshua not prayed, because Joshua 10:14 says it was because of the prayer. It says that was the day God listened to a man. That means God did what He did in response to Joshua’s prayer.
When Manasseh was taken prisoner he prayed.

2 Chronicles 33:12-13 In his distress he sought the favor of the LORD …13 And when he prayed to him, the LORD was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem 

Scripture could not be more clear that prayer moves God.
God will never, ever do anything that does not fit into His perfect plan. However from our perspective God does not want us to be fatalists. He wants us to realize that at this point in time things in the future can still go one way or the other way depending upon our prayers. And it is not a small matter which way they go. It is not a situation where God controls the really big things Himself, but He lets us have influence with regard to the minor, unimportant things. There are people who will spend eternity either in heaven or in hell based on how we pray. There are missionaries whose work will succeed or fail based on how we pray. Sick people who will live or die, churches that will flourish or shut down, relationships that will be healed or destroyed, Christians that will persevere or give up – all based on how we pray. And I know some of you probably choke on some of that. It is hard to imagine God letting such huge things be determined by anything we do. And it is scary to consider the amount of responsibility that places on our shoulders. And it is hard to understand the paradox of how those things could be in our hands and yet God is still totally sovereign and in control of all of it. He does not give up control to us – He remains in total control. It is beyond understanding how all that fits together. But what we can understand is this – if it is true that prayer works, then it must also be true that prayerlessness does not work. If God would do all the same things whether or not we pray, then prayer does not do anything. But we know it does, so if we are not praying like people’s lives depend on it, we do not understand prayer.

Within His plan we get whatever we ask for
OK, so with all that background now we are ready to appreciate John’s promise. The promise is that we receive whatever we ask for in prayer. That “whatever” does not include evil, or nonsense, or impossible things. So what does it include? What comfort do we get from this “whatever”?
No limit on how much
Well, for one thing it gives us total freedom in what we request of God. There are no limitations on how much we can ask for. There is nothing too big, nothing too costly, nothing to grandiose. You can ask God for anything your heart desires. And there are no limits to how much God will give you – none. There is a limit on the bottom end – to how little He will give you. If you pray for less than zero, He will say no. He will not give you garbage, He will not give you that which will harm you, but on the top end, when it comes to true riches and blessings and things that will bring true joy, there is no limit.

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-- how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

What could you possibly ask God for that would be too big? When my kids ask me for things sometimes I say no because they are asking for something that would not be good for them. Other times I say no because even though they are asking for a good thing, I can’t afford it. God sometimes says no for the first reason, but never for that second reason. When He gave us His own Son He showed us that nothing is too expensive.
No doubt the angels sometimes scratch their heads wondering why we humans ask God for such teeny, tiny little things. They probably hear our prayers and think, “Don’t they know who they’re talking to?” Bill Gates says, “I want to be generous to you in accordance with my riches – so ask me anything” – but you don’t ask him for a nickel.
And if you do not know for sure if you are asking for treasures or for garbage – you do not know if this thing you want can fit into God’s perfect plan – just do what Jesus did. Make your request and then say, “I only want this if it can fit into Your perfect plan. If it can’t, then not my will but Yours be done, because I desire Your plan more than my own.”

The Condition
So those are the two promises. We will have confidence to come boldly before God and feel comfortable and confident in His presence, and we will receive whatever we ask for that is not nonsense. Two big-league promises. But they are not automatic – there is a condition.
Other conditions in Scripture for answered prayer
And that should not come to us as any big surprise, because Scripture frequently places conditions upon answered prayer. Before we look at the one John gives here, let me just remind you of some of the others in Scripture.

Prayer
The first condition for answered prayer is… prayer. That may sound like a joke, but it’s not.

James 4:2 You do not have, because you do not ask God.

The biggest hindrance to getting our prayers answered is our failure to get our prayers asked.

Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you
Persistence 
And not just asking once, but persisting in prayer.

Luke 18:1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 

And He went on to tell the parable of the unjust judge, who finally gave the widow justice only because of her persistence. And if an unjust judge will do that, how much more will God? He told a similar parable in Luke 11 in which a persistent neighbor finally gets what he asks for because of his boldness in asking. So we are to be persistent. 

Faith
A third requirement for answered prayer is faith.

James 1:5-6 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God … and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt

Faith in prayer is not convincing yourself that God will say yes to your request. Faith in prayer is being so close to God that you trust Him with the whole matter.

Wholehearted seeking
A fourth requirement is earnestness and wholeheartedness. 

Jeremiah 29:12 you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

We need to pray hard.

Non-adulterous motive
Another requirement for answered pray is one people often miss, but it is very important.

James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures

Your pleasures refers to anything that you think you need besides nearness to God to be happy. When you think you cannot be happy unless your husband changes or you get a better job or you get married or you get healed or whatever - anytime you look to something besides God for your joy that is what James means by “your pleasures.” And when you pray for those things, God will say no. For God to answer our prayers we must ask for things that have the purpose of glorifying God or for the purpose of drawing nearer to God.

Righteousness
And then sixth (and this is the most common one in Scripture), righteousness. 

James 5:16 The prayer of a righteous man is powerful in its working 

Psalm 34:15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; …16 the face of the LORD is against those who do evil

Psalm 145:19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.

Proverbs 28:9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.

Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

Proverbs 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.
Proverbs 15:8 The LORD detests the sacrifice of the wicked, but the prayer of the upright pleases him.

If you do not listen to Him, He will not listen to you. God requires obedience and righteousness in order for our prayers to be heard.
Especially love
And the most important expression of righteousness is love. 

Proverbs 21:13 If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.

1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives …, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

Isaiah 58:7 share your food with the hungry …9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer
No self-condemnation 
So those are some of the conditions we find in Scripture for answered prayer. And on top of all those John adds another one here in verse 21.

21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask 

If you want these promises then you cannot be locked up in self-condemnation. If you want freedom before God and if you want your prayers to be answered, then you have to have full confidence that God is pleased with you. And we saw last time that you overcome the problem of self-condemnation by convincing your heart that God is greater than your heart, and what He says in the Bible about how pleased He is with His children trumps the way your heart feels. If you are a Christian then you are in tight with God and He is pleased with you because of your love for His people.
God does not want us to appear before Him in prayer without confidence and boldness. He wants us to behave as His children. He wants us to behave as though we were approaching a merciful, kind, generous, loving, gentle, forgiving Father. He does not want us to approach Him as though He were some kind of mean, heartless ogre. He does not want us to approach Him as though He were some distant, detached, uncaring father. He wants us to approach Him in a way that accurately reflects what He is like toward His children, not in a way that lies about what He is like. So if we approach Him with the boldness of a child to his father, God will be inclined to answer our prayers. That is the condition.

Reason 
So, the promise – freedom before God and answered prayer. The condition for receiving that promise – conquer the problem of self-condemnation. Now one last point – and this is the real crux of the matter. In verse 23 John gives us the reason why that works.
Why does obedience result in increased answers to prayer?
22 (we) receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 
We found out last time that the way to address the problem of self-condemnation is to look for the proof of your salvation, because the proof of your salvation is the very fruit that is also what makes God so pleased with you – obedience to His commands. So you look at your life and say, “Do I see obedience? Do I love the people of God?” And if the answer is yes, then #1 that gives you confidence that you are truly saved, #2 it gives you confidence that God is pleased with you, so you do not have to engage in self-condemnation, and #3 it gives you confidence in prayer, because as we see so often in Scripture, God especially listens to the prayers of those who obey Him by loving His people. 
“Isn’t that kind of a works system – where we earn favor with God by doing good deeds?” Do we put God in debt to us when we are righteous, so that He owes us a favor? No. Prayer is an expression of neediness, not resourcefulness. We have nothing to offer God except our empty cups that He can glorify Himself by generously filling. 

It removes the only hindrance 
So why are the promises of answered prayer tied to obedience and righteousness? The most obvious answer is this: It is because disobedience and unrighteousness interfere with God’s free flow of blessing and favor. When we sin we are asking God for chastisement. If you have children this is easy to understand. You love your kids and you are naturally inclined to try to make them happy and to do wonderful things for them. And so you plan some great thing that will really make them happy. And the day before your big event, they are tempted to be disobedient to you and to lie to you. And you see it coming, and in your heart you are thinking, “Oh no – I was so looking forward to giving you this big gift. I was so looking forward to seeing your smiles and hearing you laugh. Please do not do something that will force me to cancel this event and punish you!”
That is the heart of God toward you. He sees you gravitating toward some temptation and says, “Oh, no – what I have planned for you for tomorrow is so wonderful. It would make you so happy. I was so looking forward to hearing you laugh. Don’t! Don’t spoil it. Don’t force Me to remove it from My plan for you for tomorrow.”
The reason God loves to answer our prayers when we are righteous is not because we have earned something. The reason is because He loves you so much that He is naturally inclined to shower you with gifts and to satisfy your desires in wonderful ways.

Psalm 84:11 the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

And when you refrain from disobedience, He is free to do that without restraint. 

He loves helping you love
So that is probably the most basic reason why God answers our prayers when we are obedient. But more specifically, John ties it to love. The summary of obeying God is loving the people He loves because He loves them. And understanding that makes it even more obvious why God is so inclined to answer our prayers when we are obedient. The reason God answers your prayers when you are obedient is because God loves helping you love.
If your child comes to you and says, “Mom, could you help me for a few minutes?” 
“Why? What do you need?” 
“Well, I’m trying to do something special for my sister. She hates cleaning her room, and so I wanted to surprise her by having it clean for her when she gets home from school today. But there are a few things I don’t know where they go, so could you help me finish?”
OK, now imagine this. Your teenager comes to you and says, “Hey dad, can you give me some money so I can get a hotel and get away from this lame-o family for a couple days?” Can you see how you would be more inclined to say yes to the first request than the second? The first request is, “Please help me love my sister.” The second request is, “Please help me be selfish.” God is inclined to say yes to the first and no to the second.

Love loves loving
The thing about love is, love loves to be loving. If you really love someone in your heart, you enjoy expressing that love. It brings you pleasure to make that person happy. In fact, if you love them more than you love yourself it brings you more pleasure to make them happy then it does to make yourself happy. Because love loves loving. 
And so if prayer is the expression of desire, and you truly love someone – what will your prayers be like? What will your deep desires be? They will be, “Dear God, help me in my efforts to make this person happy. I am trying to do something good for this person – help me. Give me the resources to bless this person I love with wonderful blessings. Lord, when you shower down Your favor and blessing on this person, I want to be Your delivery method. Let it come through me, because I love loving this person.” And God says, “When you pray like that I am all ears.”
Prayer is the expression of a desire. And so the key to improving your prayer life is to improve your desires. And the desires you have when there is love in your heart are the best kinds of desires, because they match the desires of God.

Conclusion
Imagine that you were the head of an organization that existed for the purpose of reducing the number of abortions in the United States. You have received billions of dollars in grants, so money is no object. And so you hire a whole army of employees to work on this project. And one day an employee comes to you and says, “I need money to do an advertising campaign for this effort.” And you say, “You got it – anything that helps further this effort.” And you give him even more money than he asked for. Another employee comes and says, “I need money to start a crisis pregnancy center.” “You got it – anything that helps further this effort.” Then another employee comes and says, “I need money for a burger and fries?”
“Burger and fries?”
“Uh, yeah, and a shake.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to attend a seminar that will help me with counseling pregnant women, and I have to buy lunch because it’s an all-day seminar.”
“You got it – anything that helps further the effort in any way.”
You would happily fund all of that, and you would do all you can to make sure your employees were not bashful about coming to you and asking. Because if something hinders them from coming to you and asking for funding, they would not do it and that will hinder your overall project.
But what would you say if an employee came and said, “I need some money for a new car.”
“Why? How does that help the effort?”
“Oh, it doesn’t have anything to do with the abortion thing. I’m just sick of having a green car, and I think I’d like to try out red.”
What are you going to say?
“No – that’s not what that money is for.”
God has a big project going. It is called His will (or His plan). And the way it is accomplished is mainly through love. He has taken us on to work for Him in this project. And if we come to Him saying, “Dear God, I need some resources to help me love Your people,” if giving you the resources will help further His causes, there is no limit to how much He will give. But when our prayers drift off the point – drift away from love for God and His people, what would be the point in answering that prayer? Let’s strive to re-center our lives on love for God and His people, so that when we express the desires of our hearts in prayer those desires are all about God’s will – loving Him and His people. And let’s strive to overcome the problem of self-condemnation so that nothing will hinder us from coming to the Lord and asking for the resources we need to love His people.

Benediction: Php.1:9-11 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God

God Living in You: Part 1 Listening to the Spirit 3:24-4:6

Summary: The Spirit is a wonderful gift, from Whom we receive assurance. 3:24 summarizes chapter 3 and introduces chapter 4 (God remaining in us). You need validation for that, because the subjective experiences prove nothing by themselves. We know they are valid only by the Holy Spirit. So there is a need for discernment because not every spirit is from God. The spirit of Antichrist (Satan) speaks through false prophets. And the way to discern is to listen to whether they confess Christ (confession requires genuineness and doctrinal accuracy). As of now we are victorious due to the power of the Spirit. Who you listen to demonstrates what is in your heart. So our listening to the Spirit shows us to be His children. 

Assurance by the Spirit V.24
The gift of the Spirit
Verse 24 as Review
Obedience
Assurance
You need assurance to have confidence in the promises
V.24 as an Introduction
The meaning of remaining
The Spirit assures us of remaining
THE NEED TO DISCERN: The existence of false prophets 4:1
How does the Holy Spirit do it? By communicating truth to us through the Word
Believing the spirits
The role of feelings
THE WAY TO DISCERN: Test the spirits VV.2-4
Confessing spirits are from God 4:2
Confess Christ (allegiance)
Two requirements for confession: truth and genuineness
Heartfelt
True
The Antichrist v.3b
The One in us is greater v.4
More powerful – no dualism
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DISCERNING (determines whether you are saved) vv.5-6
The world listens to them v.5
Knowers of God listen to us v.6
Conclusion: Assurance comes when the Spirit opens your eyes to the truth of the Gospel
Announcements
Devotionals
Day 1
But what if my repentance is in question?

24 Those who keep his commands remain in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he remains in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. 
4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

INTRODUCTION: Assurance by the Spirit V.24

24 Those who keep his commands remain in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he remains in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. 
The gift of the Spirit
Of all the things in the Christian life that could make you happy, one that God expects us to be especially excited about is the gift of the Holy Spirit. There should be special feelings of joy that warm our hearts when we call to mind the fact that we have been given the Holy Spirit of God. Having the Holy Spirit in you should be one of your absolute favorite parts of the whole Christian life. I think it is fascinating to compare Mt.7:11 with Lk.11:13. Those are two accounts of Jesus teaching us to pray by reminding us of how eager God the Father is to bless us. 

Matthew 7:11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Luke 11:13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

In place of “good gifts” he puts “the Holy Spirit.” The way God delivers good gifts to us is through the Holy Spirit. The summary and the climax of all the blessings we receive from heaven is the gift of the Holy Spirit. It should be one of our favorite parts of our whole existence. 
But for many Christians it is not, because it is so hard to get a grasp of what it even means to have the Holy Spirit. You cannot see Him or hear Him or touch Him, so how do you enjoy having Him in you? Is it just totally through knowledge? The Bible tells you He is there doing good things, so you believe it? Kind of like your liver – you have never seen it, you cannot feel it, but you are told it is there and it is doing some great things for you? Is that how we appreciate having the Holy Spirit? Or are there some actual experiences we can have of the Spirit in us? And if so, what are they? And how do you know for sure they are from the Holy Spirit? Do you have to go by some feeling in your gut, or is there a more objective way of knowing? And what does all that have to do with the obedience and assurance John has been talking about in chapter 3?
These are very important questions to answer because there is so much that God expects of you with regard to your interactions with the Holy Spirit. He expects you to walk in the Spirit and to be filled by the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit, to yield to the Spirit and not grieve or quench the Spirit and to pray in the Spirit and to utilize the gifts of the Spirit in the power of the Spirit. It is of vital importance that we understand what it means to have these kinds of interactions with the Spirit.
What, exactly, is God’s role in our obedience? Does God sit detached in heaven sending down commands and leaving us totally on our own to sink or swim? No. What about the other extreme - does God manipulate us against our will like robots to force us to do what He wants done? No. So what is there in between those two? What is the connection between God and us? The connection between God in heaven and us on earth is the ministry of the Holy Spirit dwelling inside us and our interactions with Him. And now John’s going to show us how that works.
Verse 24 as Review
The last verse of chapter 3 is one of John’s typical transition verses. It summarizes John’s whole argument in chapter 3, and introduces chapter 4 at the same time. So let’s look at his summary and then his introduction so we can understand the connection between chapter 3 and chapter 4.

Obedience
Chapter 3 is all about the unbreakable connection between being born of God and keeping His commands. You cannot separate those. And John says that again here in v.24. 

24 Those who keep his commands remain in him, and he in them.

There is no such thing as a Christian who does not obey God, because when God gives you new life He gives you something that touches every part of your being, including your will.

Titus 2:12 [His grace] teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives …13 while we wait for the blessed hope…Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

He died not just to make us forgiven but also to make us eager to do what is good. That was a promise the Father made to the Son from way back. Ps.110 is a statement from God the Father to the coming Messiah in which the Father promises His son followers who will makes themselves a freewill offering. (Ps.110:3) Our more extreme Calvinist friends deny there is such a thing as free will. And we do not have free will in the sense of total autonomy and self-determination that rises higher than God’s ultimate sovereignty over all things. But it goes way too far to say that there is no sense in which we have free will. Our free will is an important part of the gift from the Father to the Son. We make ourselves freewill offerings, eager to obey Him because we love His will. That is what His grace accomplishes in us.
And that is why unwillingness to do what is good is such proof of not having life from God. A true believer is not just someone who conforms to a certain code of ethics. He or she is someone who loves that path because that path reflects the heart of God.

Psalm 112:1 Blessed is the man who … finds great delight in his commands.

Assurance
And when you have the love in your heart for God’s commands (His will), then you have assurance of salvation, which is another major emphasis in chapter 3. In fact, verses 19-24 are an assurance sandwich. Look at v.19 – This is how we will know we are of the truth…
And v.24 - this is how we know that he remains in us….
You need assurance to have confidence in the promises
Why is it so important that we have assurance of our salvation? You need assurance of your salvation not just to have a healthy psychological equilibrium; assurance is a crucial ingredient to fellowship with God. We know that the whole sanctification process is by faith in God’s promises, right? You escape the corruption of the world by trusting in God’s great and precious promises (2 Pe.1:4). But those promises only apply to true children of God. And so if you are not certain you are a child of God then you cannot be sure those promises apply to you. So not being sure of your salvation short-circuits the entire sanctification process.
This book has so much to say about the importance of nearness to God and fellowship with Him.
And so much of that is dependent upon your confidence that you are accepted by God and pleasing to Him. That is why self-condemnation is a bad thing, and that is why assurance is such a good thing. And it is one reason why lack of assurance destroys your prayer life as we found last time.
Verse 24 as an Introduction
So that is the review part of v.24. Now let’s look at the introduction part. John has a lot of different ways of referring to salvation. Walking in the light; Being born of God; Knowing God; Loving God; Having fellowship with God; Having eternal life or life from God; Being in God; Having God in you; Being of the truth; Remaining in God and God remaining in you. Each one of those teaches us something about what it means to be a Christian. None of those are true in any measure of unbelievers, and all of them are true in varying measures for every believer. And one of the things John is going to do in chapter 4 is develop the last one in that list – God remaining in you. 
Go back for a second to the assurance sandwich. 

19 This then is how we will know we are of the truth…
But when he repeats the thought in v.24 he says this is how we know that he remains in us…
That is the focus in chapter 4 – God remaining in us.

4:12 …if we love one another, God remains in us
13 We know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 
15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. 
16 …Whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him.

The meaning of remaining
So let’s refresh our memory on the meaning of this word “remain.” It is a word that can be used a lot of different ways, but when it is used of people the idea is of either lodging with someone at their home, or keeping someone company and offering yourself to that person in fellowship. So to remain in God means to be in His presence, consciously paying attention to Him and interacting with Him.
And for God to remain in you is the same thing except from God’s perspective. Wherever you go, He is there with you. He resides with you, lives with you, keeps you company, stays with you, shares Himself with you, offers Himself to you in fellowship.
And again, that nearness is marked by a mutual interaction. It is more than just having an awareness that God is here. It is an actual 2-way interchange with God. Some things go out from your heart to God’s heart and some things come from God’s heart to your heart. You offer Him prayers and requests, and He responds by giving you grace and help and answers to your prayers. You speak to Him in prayer and He speaks to you by opening your eyes to understand various things in His Word, the Bible. He offers you guidance as you walk through your day; you respond by following Him where He leads. He pricks your conscience with guilt over sin; you respond with repentance and turning back to Him. You offer Him your troubled heart; He responds with comfort and peace. You lift up your empty cup of need; He responds by filling it with strength or wisdom or money or whatever resource you need. He provides you with food or shelter or some other provision; you respond back with gratitude. He opens your eyes to some wonderful aspect of His glory; you respond with expressions of delight in Him and love for Him. You offer Him worship; He responds by giving you a sense that your worship was accepted. He stings you with His rod in chastisement over sin; you respond by renewing your fear of Him and submitting to his will. All of that is what it means to remain in God and have God remain in you - Continual, conscious, intentional, personal 2-way interactions with God.

The Spirit assures us of remaining
Now, look again at v.24.

24 …this is how we know that he remains in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. 

John is showing us how we can have proof that God is remaining in us. Now, at first that may sound a little strange. Why do you need proof that God is remaining in you? Isn’t it kind of self-evident?
Some of our Charismatic friends might have expected this to read the other way around – your fellowship with God proves you have the Holy Spirit. They say, “How do I know for sure if I have the Spirit? I know I have the Holy Spirit because He speaks to me and guides me and empowers me, and He walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am His own. I have all this fellowship with Him and that is proof that I have the Spirit.” They say the inner, subjective experiences you have with God – that is what proves you have the Spirit.
But John says it the other way around. You know you have subjective experiences with God because of the Spirit. And they might say, “That doesn’t make sense. Why do I need proof that I have those experiences?
If I am experiencing it, of course I have it!” But John is teaching us here that your experiences are not proof of anything. You cannot know for sure that you are having fellowship with God simply by the nature of your inner, subjective experiences. Those do not prove anything – they need to be validated by something else.
And the same goes for evaluating a teacher or a particular doctrine. Don’t ever assess whether a teacher or preacher or writer is from God or not from God by how much sense he seems to make. When your sinful flesh really wants to believe that some sin is justified, then when a false teacher comes along and says it is, your flesh will say, “That guy makes the most sense of anyone I’ve heard.” You cannot trust your feelings about what’s from God and what isn’t. 

THE NEED TO DISCERN: The existence of false prophets 4:1

Why is that? Why is there a need for discernment? Why are my experiences of God in my heart not adequate proof in and of themselves that I am saved? Or if I have a gut feeling deep down that what a guy is saying is really from God – why can’t I go by that gut feeling? Because there are lying spirits out there.

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God

Whether it be a feeling in your heart, and impression, or a doctrine, or a teacher or preacher, you have to use discernment before you decide if it is from God, because not every spirit is from God.
And it is not good discernment to just look at the immediate fruit and try to decide from that. Satan dresses himself up to look like the Holy Spirit (2 Cor.11:14 – and angel of light). People say all the time, “I heard an inner voice, and I know it was from God because it moved me toward godliness.” Or “That preacher is definitely from God, because people are coming to faith in Christ through him.” Does that prove it is from God? No. That is exactly the kind of thing Satan does when he masquerades as an angel of light. That is why so many people fall for it. Satan is happy to do those kinds of things in the short term in order to gain your ear. So no inner, subjective feeling – no matter how good it seems to be, is by itself proof that it is from God.
How does the Holy Spirit do it? By communicating truth to us through the Word
So what is adequate proof? How can you tell for sure if your experiences are genuine?

Believing the spirits

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit

What does it mean to believe a spirit? So who are these spirits and how do they communicate with you? John answers the question of who the spirits are in v.3.

3 every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist

We’re actually only really dealing with two spirits here – the Holy Spirit and the spirit of the antichrist. And John has made it pretty clear already in this epistle that the spirit of the antichrist is Satan. So the two spirits are the Holy Spirit and Satan. And both are communicating things to you and both want you to believe what they are communicating.
But how do they communicate?

4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

They speak through human mouthpieces. Satan (the spirit of the antichrist) speaks through false prophets. And the Holy Spirit speaks through John and the rest of the Apostles. 

6 We (John and the other the Apostles) are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us

Both spirits speak through people. The way a spirit communicates an idea to you is by using the mouth of some human being. And the human mouthpieces so accurately communicate what the spirits are saying that John speaks as though those human mouthpieces were the spirits.
The role of feelings
And the feelings and experiences you have inside your heart may be a product of believing the things that are coming from the spirit of the antichrist, or they may be coming from the Spirit of God. When you have a sense of peace or joy or love or whatever – that could have come from something good or it could have come from something bad masquerading as something good.
That is why it is so dangerous to make your feelings and subjective experiences the determiners of truth. You test a doctrine or a practice or an experience by how you feel. If you have a sense of peace about it – it is from God. If you feel uneasy, then it is not. When you fall into that kind of error you will not think something is from the devil unless it is obviously evil.
If that is your approach – if you determine whether something is from God or not by the feeling you have in your heart about it - you will swallow it hook, line, and sinker when Satan masquerades as an angel of light. So that is the wrong approach. But the solution to that error is not to turn around and say, “You can’t trust your feelings, and therefore feelings are irrelevant. Feelings don’t matter at all. If you have some good feelings, that is some icing on the cake, but the presence or absence of feelings does not really mean much of anything.”
That is also a very damaging error. Feelings are incredibly important. The greatest commandment is love, and there is no love without delight and desire and a number of other feelings. 
The solution to the error of determining truth by means of feelings is not to reject the importance of feelings. The solution to the error of determining truth by means of feelings is to realize that it is backwards. You don’t interpret truth by means of feelings and experiences; you interpret feelings and experiences by means of truth.

THE WAY TO DISCERN: Test the spirits VV.2-4
Confessing spirits are from God 4:2
So, there is a need for discernment because not every spirit is from God. There are false teachers out there. So you say, “OK, I see the need for discernment, so how is it done? How do I do it?” And so in v.2 John shows us the way to discern.

Confess Christ (allegiance)
You begin by looking at what they confess about Christ.

2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. 3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. 

The literal translation would sound this way: 

“Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ having come in flesh is from God.”

It is not so much that they confess the fact that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, but rather they confess the incarnate Christ Himself. To confess Christ means to profess allegiance to Him. And that is why in the next verse John does not repeat the “in the flesh” part, because the main point is the confessing Christ part.

Two requirements for confession: truth and genuineness 
So everyone who confesses Christ is from God. But is that really true? How can John say that when Jesus said,

Matthew 7:22-23 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord … 23 I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

Millions of people verbalize their allegiance to Christ who are not saved. Is John trying to tell us that if stopped a guy on the street and said I’ll pay you $50 if you profess the name of Christ and he does it that that guy is automatically saved regardless of what is in his heart? No. When a person verbalizes a positive statement about Jesus, there are two requirements in order for that to qualify as an actual confession.
Heartfelt
First, it has to come from the heart. We have already seen this word “confess” twice in 1 John – in 1:9 and 2:23. And both times we found that that confession is something you do with your heart, not just your mouth. If you say all the right things but you don’t have a disposition of heart that matches what you are saying, then what you are saying is worse than worthless.
Have you ever seen two kids get into a fight “SHUT UP DINGBAT!” “YOU SHUT UP BLOCKHEAD!” And the mom comes and breaks it up and says, “OK, now say you’re sorry.” “SORRY!… dingbat” Is that a reconciled relationship? Just spitting out the word “sorry” is meaningless. 
And we do the same thing as adults. Your wife nags you and nags you and finally you say, “Alright, alright – I’m sorry already. I did it. It was sin. I admit it – OK? Geesh!” That is not confession. In order for it to be confession it has to be accompanied by a disposition of heart that matches the words.
If you’re yelling at someone or arguing with them while you’re confessing your sin, you’re probably not really confessing your sin.
And that same principle applies to confession of allegiance. If you say with your mouth that Jesus is Lord but you have no disposition of heart to submit to His authority, you’re not really confessing. 
True
So the first requirement for something to qualify as confession is it has to come from the heart. The other requirement is it must be true. That is why John throws in that phrase “in the flesh.” 
Obviously that is not the only thing they have to get right about Jesus. Some of the gnostic teachers were saying the Christ could never have become human flesh, because they believed spirit was good and flesh was bad. They were teaching that the Christ spirit landed on Jesus at His baptism and left Him just before His death. Others were teaching that Jesus was a phantom. Others were saying He wasn’t the Son of God. They had a lot of wrong ideas about Jesus. And John doesn’t bring all of them up every time he refers to the false teaching. He usually just mentions one of them as a kind of shorthand to refer to all of it. So when you see John referring to Jesus and the Christ, or Son of God, or having come in the flesh, or any of that – that is what he is getting at.
The point is you have to confess the truth about Christ. Millions of people claim to be Christian, but they reject the truth about Him. Mormons call themselves Christians, but they confess a Jesus who was a created being and who is Satan’s brother. Muslims believe in a Jesus who never died on the cross and who was not God. Jewish people believe in a Jesus who was a mere man, and who was not the Messiah. Many people in our culture believe in a Jesus who will morph Himself into any religion and who would never send anyone to hell and who accepts anybody and everybody unconditionally. What happens to people like that – who do not accept all the Jesus said about Himself?

John 8:24 If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.

It does not do any good to confess Jesus Christ as your lord and savior if you don’t accept His claims about Himself. And He claimed to be eternal, creator God in human flesh, and He claimed to be the one and only way to salvation. So for something to qualify as confession it must not only be genuine, it must also be accurate. 

The Antichrist v.3b

3 …This is the [spirit] of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

Once again John draws the connection between those who reject the truth about Jesus Christ now and the final, end times conflict between Christ and the Antichrist. He keeps reminding us of this cosmic war. Opposition to the truth about Jesus is not incidental. In chapter 3 John made the point that living in unrepentant sin is treason in the war between God and Satan, and now he makes the same point about failure to embrace the truth about Jesus Christ. You can commit treason in the way you live and you can commit treason in what you believe. Both are treason because the gospel has two parts. Remember v.23 in chapter 3?

3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

The gospel requires a certain belief and a certain response in your life. And if either one is missing, then you are on the wrong side in the war between God and Satan.

The One in us is greater v.4

So John is warning his reads not to fall for the doctrines of the false teachers. But alongside the warning is some encouragement. 

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 

They were in danger of succumbing to the false teachers, so John gives them the warning, but as of the time of the writing of 1 John they hadn’t yet succumbed, and so John can call them overcomers. The enemy tries to draw you in to error, and you resist – that is overcoming. And at this point the readers were overcoming. And, I trust, we are as well.
The battle is not over yet, which is why we need these warnings. But as of now we definitely have the upper hand. It is just like what he said chapter 2. In vv.12-17 he says, “I’m writing to you because you have overcome the evil one.” And then he immediately goes on to say, “Do not love the world or anything in the world…” You have overcome Satan. You have your foot on his neck. All you have to do now is avoid falling in love with him and his world.
More powerful – no dualism 
And the reason you have your foot on his neck – the reason you have not caved in to the false teaching and the enticements of the world while others have, is because of the power of God in you. The one who is in you (the Holy Spirit of God) is more powerful than the enemy. You see, the Bible does not teach dualism. Dualism is the idea that there is a good force and an evil force and the two forces are equal in strength. But that is not the case. Satan is incredibly powerful, but the Holy Spirit, who lives in you, is infinitely more powerful.
Most of us know what it is like to have our heart so entwined into some sin that it seems like giving that thing up would be absolutely impossible. Doing the right thing seems like it is just beyond our ability. But that is never the case, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. You would not be a Christian right now if it were not for His superior power. Any belief you have of the truth in your heart is due to the Holy Spirit overpowering Satan.
When we see this word “greater” here it reminds us that we saw that same word a few verses earlier. What did John say God was greater than last week? (3:20 – your condemning heart) God is greater than your condemning heart and greater than the spirit of the antichrist. The Holy Spirit provides all the power you need to resist attacks from without and attacks from within.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DISCERNING (determines whether you are saved) vv.5-6

Now, at this point we might expect vv.5,6 to say, “Therefore, don’t listen to them. They are not from God, therefore don’t fall for their message.” And that is implied, but that is not the main point John is getting at here. John’s purpose in v.5 is not mainly to give a command about who we should listen to, but rather to make a statement about who we do listen to. He wants to make a point about which people tend to listen to which teachers.
He showed us the need for discernment and the way to discern, and now in vv.5-6 we see the significance of discernment. Who you listen to says something very important about you. You can tell a whole lot about the condition of your heart by who catches your ear and who does not. The world listens to them v.5

5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 

The fact that they speak from the viewpoint of the world makes their teaching palatable to the world. These preachers fill huge venues every Sunday – entire stadiums in some cases. People come to their churches by the tens of thousands because their ideas are formulated by natural human reasoning, and therefore it is acceptable and pleasing to worldly ears. From an earthly point of view it makes much better sense than the truth of the Scriptures. Knowers of God listen to us v.6

6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
The we here is the Apostles, who wrote the NT. Every true Christian listens to God’s Word.

We are attracted to the teachers we are attracted to because of what is in our hearts. Again, that is why there are so many statements in the OT about not just learning God’s Word and obeying God’s Word, but loving it and delighting in it. The power of God’s grace and the effect of new birth plants a deep desire and craving for the will of God as expressed in His Word. It becomes your food and drink, and you love it.
And the world is that some way towards worldly, satanic, antichristian ideas. When one preacher gains a greater hearing than another preacher else it is not always because he’s more persuasive. It may just be because there are more people out there whose hearts want to hear that first guy’s message. The measure of success in ministry is never how many people come. The measure of success is which people come. A ministry that attracts 50 people who love the Word of God is more successful than a ministry that attracts 50,000 people who love this world. If you build a mega church by attracting the people whose hearts are inclined toward the gospel, that is great. But if you build a mega church by attracting people whose hearts are inclined to this world, you have not built a church. You have just drawn a crowd. You have not done anything different than what the Denver Broncos do every week. That is one reason why we oppose the strategy of using entertainment to attract unbelievers and then giving them the gospel. The biblical approach is to use the gospel to attract the unbelievers who are being drawn by the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion: Assurance comes when the Spirit opens your eyes to the truth of the Gospel

Now at this point you might be thinking, “OK Darrell, you have talked about the Holy Spirit, and discernment, assurance, spiritual warfare, the antichrist, and it is all very interesting – but how does it all fit together? What is this section of Scripture actually about? Is there a unified message here?” Yes, and now that we have a good understanding of all the pieces let’s see if we can put them all together and see the big picture.
The most basic ministry of the Holy Spirit in our hearts is a ministry of enlightenment. He opens our eyes to be able to see the truth in His Word. At the beginning of the sermon I asked a series of questions about how the Holy Spirit works in your heart. How do we avoid the error of just imagining something in our heads and then calling it the Holy Spirit? How do you know if it is really Him?
The answer is in v.6. This is how you know the difference between the truth of God and the counterfeit from Satan: by listening to the Apostles. You discern whether someone is inspired by the Holy Spirit or by the spirit of the Antichrist by whether that teacher agrees with the Apostles (and the rest of Scripture). And to do that you need what Scripture calls illumination. Illumination is when the Holy Spirit turns on the lights and shows you something.
And the crucial thing to remember is this: When the Holy Spirit opens your eyes He opens them to see what is there, not what isn’t there. If the Spirit is going to guide me in a particular circumstance – if He is going to lead me to do something, He does it my opening my eyes to see a principle in Scripture, and enlightening my heart to see how that principle applies to this decision I am having to make. He is not showing me anything that was not already there. The principle was there all along – I just didn’t see it until the Holy Spirit turned on his flashlight and shined it on that particular truth. 
So if someone comes to me and says, “God is leading me to move to Florida,” I will respond by saying, “What principles in Scripture did He show you that makes you sure that is the wisest move for you right now?” And if they respond by saying, “I woke up this morning and my Bible just flopped open to Gn.13:14 - 

Genesis 13:14 The LORD said to Abram … "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look to …the south…”

I will say – “That verse does not mean everyone should move to the south. What you are claiming to get out of it is not even there. There is no principle there that says it is wise to move to Florida.” And so I know it wasn’t the Holy Spirit is leading because the Holy Spirit illumines us by showing us what is there, not what isn’t there in His Word.
Now, on the other hand, suppose they take me to… 
Psalm 1:1-2 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD

And they say, “Here in Colorado I have a lot of old friends who are a really bad influence on me. But in Florida I have godly friends who point my affections to the Lord.” And the Holy Spirit showed me this morning by pointing me to the principle in Ps.1 and waking me up to how it applies to this situation. That I will accept as the leading of the Spirit. Because if the Spirit shows you something that is there, if it is really there then you should be able to show it to someone else.
That is the way the Holy Spirit works in your heart. And what does that have to do with assurance? The assurance that you are truly saved comes from the fact that the Holy Spirit has shined His floodlight on the gospel, and enabled you to see it and embrace it as true. You know you are saved because you wholeheartedly believe the gospel. You would not believe the gospel if it were not for the enlightening work of the Holy Spirit. The fact that you can see it as true, and you are willing to submit to it and obey it – that is the work of the Holy Spirit in you.
Remember v.23 in chapter 3 where John summarized the whole gospel?

3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

Two parts: faith and the life of love that results from faith. And so how can we be assured of our salvation? The answer in chapter 3 is by observing whether you have that life of love that comes from faith. And the answer in this section is by observing whether you have the faith – whether you can see the gospel as true and embrace it with your heart. That is bomb-proof evidence of genuine salvation. Do you believe the gospel and do you have the life of love that results from true faith? (Except John puts the love test first because he is dealing with people who thought it was possible to truly believe without any necessary impact on the way you live.)
You see, it is significant that John gives us both the positive and the negative back in vv.2, 3. If John’s only point were to teach us to use discernment so we don’t listen to false teachers he could have skipped the positive in v.2 and gone right to the negative in v.3. He could have said…

2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: (then go right to v.3) every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. 

The people who deny Christ are not from God. But that is not the main point. The main point is v.2.
2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ having come in the flesh is from God

If you are confessing the truth about Jesus Christ from your heart, you are from God. That is the work of the Spirit. That is how the Holy Spirit gives you assurance that God remains in you. That is how you know for sure that the interactions of fellowship inside your heart are real – really God Himself remaining in you. And that assurance becomes the engine that drives sanctification – the motor that powers your ability to overcome sin in your life - that motor is bolted down to the rock-solid foundation of that assurance of your salvation, because it is that assurance that convinces your heart that all the great and precious promises God has made to His children will prove true for you - Because you are a true child of God. That assurance is the fire that keeps your fellowship with God warm, and it is the family room couch that that gives you the context in which you can boldly approach God in prayer as a child approaches his father. 

24 And this is how we know that he remains in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Benediction: 2 Cor.13:5-14 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. 11 Finally, brothers, Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss…14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

God Living in You: Part 2 Let us Love One Another 4:7-11

Summary: Love one another because love is from God (and is therefore desirable to experience it flowing through you and valuable to others to receive from you). It therefore bolsters your assurance and increases your participation in the divine nature. Increase your awareness that love is from God through prayer. Love is defined not by our love but by God’s. It involves emotion (hence the word “love”), sacrifice for the best interests of the beloved, which is spiritual life through the gospel, it initiates and it redeems.

Introduction
Motivation: Why do it?
Because Love is from God
Corollary #1 - If it’s from God, it’s good
So you should desire to experience it flowing through you
And you should be eager to give it to others
Corollary #2 – Loving others bolsters your assurance of salvation
So why the command?
Corollary #3 - Loving the saints = participation in the divine nature
How to increase your awareness of the origin of your love
Definition: What is it?
1) Love
2) Sacrifice
3) Seeking the benefit of the beloved (life)
4) Initiating in the face of non-love
5) Forgiving/Redeeming/Sanctifying
Conclusion: Love like God
Devotionals

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is accomplished in us. 13 We know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him.

Introduction
Have you ever noticed how few songs there are on the radio about sports? Sports have been immensely popular in most every culture throughout history. Think of the millions of people that shell out large sums of money every year to watch football games – baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer. The average attendance at a football game is 67,000 souls – and that does not even count the people who watch on TV. Sports is a huge part of our lives, and yet there are hardly any songs about it.
I do not hear a lot of songs about reading either, or going to the movies, or eating. And yet, it would be impossible to count the number of love songs. Love is the topic of more songs, books, stories, poems, movies, and plays than any other topic. It is tough to find a story that does not have some kind of love relationship in it. Even sci-fi movies, action movies – any kind of movie; they will always have either a romance or a deep friendship or both at the core of the story. 
The human heart longs for that perfect love relationship. It is a hunger that goes way down deep in the soul. It is part of the image of God in man. A person who has free tickets to every sporting event, and who can eat any food he wants to, and has all the money in the world, but does not have anyone who loves him and who does not have anyone he loves… - that is a miserable person. But a person with rich, deep, thriving love relationships is a happy man no matter what his other circumstances are. 
Think of the impact the presence or absence of love has had on your life. What happens when your love falters? You start drifting toward selfishness and your focus turns inward, and your whole life just starts to become hollow and empty. Isn’t that usually when you are the most depressed? Isn’t that usually when you are usually the most irritable and unhappy? And then you move back toward love and your attention turns outward towards others, and your life fills up with meaning and fullness and joy.
So even from an earthly standpoint it is obvious that love is supremely important. But far more important than that is the fact that God’s Word says that it is supremely important. I do not know if I could possibly say anything to overstate that. The statements in Scripture about love are so colossal and huge and sweeping and comprehensive in their breadth and scope it is just amazing. Jesus said the command to love is the greatest command and the summary of the entire law of God. In Matthew 25 Jesus described Judgment Day in very simple terms: Those who loved Christians will go to heaven and those who didn’t will go to hell. 1 Corinthians 13 says if you give everything you have to feed the poor and die as a martyr but do not have love it is all worthless. James said if you do not love the brother in need your faith is dead and you are lost. Paul said the goal of all his teaching was love. Nothing is more important than love, and so it is no surprise that John returns to this subject again and again in the book of 1 John. We have already done two major sections on love – one in chapter 2 and another in chapter 3. And now here in chapter 4 we come to yet another one, and this one is the most extensive discussion of love in the book.

Motivation: Why do it?

7 Beloved, let us love one another

Jesus made it clear that we are to love everyone – including our enemies. But John’s focus here is on love for one another within the Church. There is something very special about the way believers love other believers. Jesus did not say, “They will know you are My disciples by the way you love the poor,” or “the world,” or even “by the way you love your enemies.” He said “They will know you are My disciples by the way you love one another” (Jn.13:35). That means there should be something about our love for one another that is especially striking.
But on the other hand, there are some serious challenges we face in this matter of loving one another. And those challenges come in the form of certain people who are just especially hard to love. For some people, pretty much everybody in the Church is hard to love. More than once I have had people tell me that it is a lot easier for them to love unbelievers than Christians. And if that is the case for you, you need to take a close look at whether or not you are saved – since love for the people of God is the supreme mark of genuine faith.
But for most of us, we love most of the folks in the Church – it is just certain ones that we struggle to love. For you, maybe it is your husband, or your wife. Or a family member, or someone you are in ministry with. Or maybe it is someone you don’t have a lot of contact with, but that person really hurt you or worse – they hurt someone close to you, so you just have this ongoing position of being at odds with that person. In today’s text John is going to do two things. First he is going to give us some motivations to love, then he will teach us what love is. And if you want to see that outline for yourself just look at verses 7 and 10.

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for (because)…

Then he goes on to give reasons.

10 This is love…

And he goes on to tell us what love is. So the outline for this passage is pretty simple – Why? and What?: Reasons for love and the Model of love.
We will start with the why? What is our motive for loving one another? To start loving someone you do not love is so hard – it requires an extremely compelling motive. Ted Engstrom tells the story of an American tourist who was passing by a leprosarium, and saw a lovely young missionary cleaning the putrid sores of a leprous beggar prior to his entering the leprosarium. It was so revolting and disgusting to the man that he could not even take any pictures. And in his disgust he said, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.” To which the young woman responded, “Neither would I.” But she did it anyway because she had a motivation more compelling than a million dollars. Loving like God loves requires an incredibly high and powerful motivation.
Is there someone in your life God wants you to love and you don’t think you can do it? You don’t think you could do it even if someone paid you a million dollars? Maybe you couldn’t. But if we understand the motives that John is going to offer in this passage - that will be enough to motivate us.
Because Love is from God
7 Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God

Why should you love that hard to love person? Because love is from God. One of the biggest hindrances that keeps you from loving people as you should is thinking that love is from you. Think about that for a moment – your love is not from you. It is from God!

Corollary #1 - If it’s from God, it’s good
John’s logic is simple – if something is from God you should want it. That is a corollary to the statement “Love is from God.” Do you remember what a corollary is? In logic, when you say, “If this statement is true, then there are a few other things that also have to be true.” Those other things are called corollaries. John has stated that love is from God. And if that is true there are three other things – three corollaries that also have to be true.

So you should desire to experience it flowing through you
And the first corollary is obvious – if it is from God then it is desirable. Psalm 36:8 speaks of God’s river of delights. When I see some dried-up soul in need of love, if I position myself in between God and that person, that river of delights from the heart of God will wash right through me onto this person. And that makes loving people a delightful experience. If you think your love comes from you, you won’t appreciate the experience of what is happening when you love. But if you are aware that it is coming from God you will actually be undergoing a personal encounter with God.
And you should be eager to give it to others
If something is from God that thing is of great value. So not only is it a delightful thing to experience it flowing through you – but it is even more delightful when you realize what a valuable thing your beloved is receiving from you. Raise your hand if you have ever been hesitant or reluctant to be involved in ministry to others because of a sense of inferiority or inadequacy. Most of us face that at some point or another. We think, “My gifts aren’t all that great. I’m sitting out of ministry right now because I just don’t have much of anything to offer. This church doesn’t really need me – they’ve got all kinds of other people who are far more gifted. What I have to offer just isn’t worthwhile.” 
But the question is not whether what you have to offer is worthwhile. The question is whether what God has to offer through you is worthwhile. If love comes from me, it is probably not something people need. But when I realize that my love is from God, I will realize how much people need it.
If someone gave you a truckload of oranges you might hand some out to folks and you might not. But if you came across a whole village of people who were dying of scurvy (which is cured by citrus fruit), and you saw little children with their teeth falling out and horrible, painful sores from their lack of vitamin C, suddenly you would realize the incredible value of your truckload of oranges, and that would make you eager to hand them out in the village.

Corollary #2 – Loving others bolsters your assurance of salvation
So John says, “love one another because love is from God.” And the implied corollary is that love is supremely valuable – both for you to experience as the one loving, and for the person who is receiving the love that is flowing from God through you. That is the first corollary (and that one is implied); the second one John states explicitly at the end of verse 7. 
7 Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 

When you love it proves that you are born of God. John spent the entire previous chapter making the point that only the people who love in obedience to God’s command are truly born of God. He has hammered away at that because assurance of salvation is such a crucial component of living the Christian life. You need assurance to defeat sin through faith in the promises. You need assurance to have a prayer life that honors God, so you have proper boldness. You need assurance in order to have proper fellowship with God, so you approach Him in a way that points to Him as a loving father. You need assurance in order to properly interact with God in the way the parent-child relationship is supposed to be. If you are truly saved it is vitally important that you be extremely confident that you are saved, and that happens when you love with God-like love, because only saved people love that way.
So why the command?
At this point someone might ask, “If it’s guaranteed that every true Christian will love, why the command?” If it is already certain that all true Christians will love one another, why does John need to command us to love one another?
For one thing, the reason all true Christians will do it is because all true Christians delight in the will of God. And the will of God is communicated to us via commands. So of course we need the commands. If His commands are our delight because they express His will, then why would He withhold His commands from us?
Secondly, our inclination to obey is guaranteed, but it is not automatic. You don’t say, “Any healthy child will eat food, therefore you don’t need to feed your child.” Any healthy child will eat food therefore you feed him.
And third, we need to remember that we have more than one influence at work inside us. Yes, our new nature compels us toward love. But our flesh compels us toward selfishness. And we must labor and struggle and fight and strive to overcome the flesh and the devil and live according to our new nature. And that brings us to the third corollary.

Corollary #3 - Loving the saints = participation in the divine nature

8 Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. 

It is absolutely impossible to know God and not love.
But why? If someone is athletic I can know that person without ever becoming athletic myself. If someone is intelligent I can know that person without becoming intelligent like them. If someone is short or tall or loud or funny or kind or angry or whatever – it is possible for me to know that person even if I do not share that attribute. So why is it impossible to know God without becoming a loving person?
John gives us the answer:

8 Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. 

Love is such an essential part of God’s nature that the action of knowing Him necessarily results in that part of His nature rubbing off on you.
As we have seen numerous times already in this book, knowing a person does not refer to mere information. It includes information, but the main idea is that of relational intimacy. Knowing someone means experiencing that person in an intimate exchange of love. 
Gn.4:1 Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived.

So knowledge of God is a relational, personal, experience of the true God through a mutual exchange of intimacy and love.
And when you do that – when you have that kind of relational interaction with God, the byproduct will always be love for the people He loves – 100% of the time. Knowing God involves gaining insight into what is valuable and not valuable, and what God values is His Son and all who are in His Son. Knowing God involves becoming more and more inclined to enjoy the things He enjoys, and what God enjoys is that which benefits and blesses His people. The more relational interaction you have with God the more His will becomes supreme in your affections, and the will of God is that His people be loved. The more intimately you know God the more His purposes and goals and desires become your purposes and goals and desires, and His purposes and His desires and His goals are all about the expression of His love. So the more involved you are in knowing God the more you will love His people. The activity of knowing Him – the activity of being involved in that personal, relational exchange of love with God, will always result in you loving His people more. So if your love for the saints is weak, that means you only know God a little bit. You are only having small exchanges of intimacy with Him. If your knowledge of God is great your love for His people will be great.
So when John says…

Let us love one another because … whoever does not love does not know God because God is love…

what he is saying is the nature of God is so loving that love rubs off on anyone who knows Him, and so “Let us love one another” is another way of saying, “Let’s participate in the nature of God more.”
Did we receive aspects of the nature of God when we were born again? Yes. But your participation in that can vary.

2 Peter 1:4,5 Through [His glory and goodness] he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. 5 For this very reason, make every effort…

Through faith in His great and precious promises we can participate in the divine nature, therefore we should make every effort to do so. 
Jesus made a very similar statement in the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 5:44-45 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. 

The point is not that they should love in order to become sons. He was already their Father. The point is they should love in order to experience the fatherhood of God in a greater way– to behave in a manner that is more and more consistent with their status as sons. 
When you have an opportunity to love you should take it - not just so you can behave like God, but so you can be like God. The love we have for one another is not just a matter of imitating God. It is more than imitation. It is family resemblance, and knowing that should serve as a motivation for us to do it more.
We should be like a little toddler who wants to do all the things he sees his father doing just because his father is doing them. He wants to mow the lawn or go off to work or whatever – not because he has any idea what any of that actually means, but just because they are the things his dad does.
As children of God we should be delighted at the chance to do what God does. But in loving people we go beyond doing what God does. We also join close by His side in feeling what He feels. When you feel the same thing a loved one is feeling, and that drives you to join by his side in what he is doing, that draws you close to that loved one. So love one another in order to be near to the heart of God.
How to increase your awareness of the origin of your love
So if we had a better awareness of the origin of our love we would be much more motivated to love because…
1) anything from God is good to experience, and 
2) we would see the enormous treasure people are actually receiving from us when we love them, and
3) loving others would increase our assurance of salvation, and
4) loving others would give us a greater participation in the divine nature.
So how do you train your heart to have more of that awareness – greater realization that the love in your heart is from God? Chances are you already knew that love is from God, and yet you still struggle to love people. Something has to happen to make that truth more of a governing reality in your affections. And one way to do that is to step up your efforts to seek it from God. If you want to train your heart to realize that something is from God, then seek that thing from God.
And the key to that is prayer. One thing the Lord has been teaching me lately is the connection between depending on God for something and the urgency and frequency of my prayers for that thing. When I am really, genuinely desperate for something from God; I don’t pray for it every morning. I pray for it every 10 minutes. If you are lacking love in your heart for your spouse or your friend or your relative or your enemy or whoever, try stepping up the urgency of your prayers. Pray for love. If asking God every morning to put love in your heart for that person isn’t working, do it every hour. And if that isn’t working try every five minutes. Keep cranking up the intensity of your prayers until the Lord answers.
And doing that will accomplish two things. First, it will fulfill the model of prayer the Lord gave us in parables like the Unjust Judge – where He taught us to be persistent and not to give up. And second it will train our hearts to be alert to the fact that when the Lord does answer and you do start to have sparks of love for that person, that it came from God. And in the meantime – while you still struggle with your unloving attitude, those constant prayers will teach your heart that the love that is missing in your heart is something that comes only from God.

Definition: What is it?
OK, so that is the first half of the passage. Now we understand that motivation – we know the answer to the question why? Now let’s answer the question “What?” What is love? How do we define it?
First of all, we need to understand that God revealed the meaning of love within Christianity.

9 This is how God showed his love among us…

The “among us” refers to the Church.
The world is clueless about love. God’s love can be seen in the creation – no doubt about that. The whole earth is full of His unfailing love (Ps.33:5, 119:64). But the creation does not teach us what love is. It puts it on display, but it does not define it. Once we know what love is we can see it in all that God does, but we do not learn the definition of love from the creation.
Nor do we learn the meaning of love from our own experience. 

10 This is love: not that we loved God

We do not learn what love is by human examples of love. Most people think human love is the standard. You see some remarkable display of love and you are tempted to borrow those sacred words from verse 10 and say, “This is love.” You see the tenderness of a mother with her baby, and some wonderful life-long friendship or some blissful marriage, and you think, “This is love.” A soldier dives on a grenade sacrificing his own life for his buddies, and you think, “Surely that is the epitome of love.” But it is not.
“But what about when people have great love for God? What if someone is willing to be tortured and burned at the stake for the name of Christ. Surely that would be the model of love - wouldn’t it?” No. This is love: not that we loved God. The model of ideal love cannot be found in any human illustration of love. Even the greatest displays of human love for God are, if you think about it, really rather unremarkable. It is no big shock that a creature should love its Creator. Even if every person loved God supremely – that wouldn’t be all that amazing. God is perfect goodness – perfect grace, glorious, righteous, pure, beautiful beyond measure. He is the most lovely, lovable, desirable, delightful being in existence. It is no great feat to love Him. There is really nothing remarkable in loving the greatest treasure there is. There is nothing all the heroic about being willing to let your body be burned for a few minutes for Someone who saved you from eternal burning. That would not be all that remarkable. What is remarkable is the fact that naturally we do not love Him.
No, if you want to know the measure of love – if you want to know the ideal, you must look not at man’s love but at God’s love. John is going to teach us what love is by showing us God’s love and how God expressed that love.
1) Love
The first one part of the definition is the most obvious and yet the one that is most often missed. And that is this – this thing that God does that John is also calling us to do is something that is best described by the word, “love.” I heard a pastor say just this week, “This isn’t talking about emotion. It’s talking about commitment.” A number of the commentaries say the same thing. But if that were true why wouldn’t God have just saved the confusion and used the word “commitment” instead of the word “love”? If it does not involve any emotion, then why use one of the most emotional words in all of human language to describe it? When God uses the word “love” He does it for a reason. He wants us to think about…love. And at the core of love is desire and delight. If you love someone you desire that person and you take delight in that person. You are not only committed to that person’s wellbeing, but you enjoy their wellbeing. Their smile brings you pleasure.
John does not spell all that out in this verse because he doesn’t need to – he already communicated it by picking the word “love.” To love means to really, really like a lot. And if you come up with some kind of ridiculous definition of love that says you can love someone without liking that person, you are just abusing language to justify a lack of love in your heart.
2) Sacrifice
So love involves liking a lot. But it does not stop there. If you stop there (which is what the world does), then your concept of love will inevitably become contaminated by selfishness, which is the opposite of love. And so John is going to show us how God’s example of ideal love rules that out.

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world 
Now, the last time John wanted to illustrate love he pointed us not to the Father, but to Jesus.

1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

Isn’t that the supreme example of love? After all, Jesus laid down His life. Jesus suffered and bore the wrath of God for our sin and died in our place. God the Father didn’t do that. So why point us to the Father here rather than to Jesus as the supreme example of love?
I would suggest one possible reason is this: I think it would be fair to say that if any Person in the Trinity sacrificed more it was God the Father, not God the Son. Yes, the Son set aside all His magnificent glory in heaven, and He suffered humiliation and agony and death. And that was a sacrifice beyond comprehension. But think of what the Father sacrificed.
That term translated “one and only son” carries the connotation of an especially beloved son. And there is a reason why John puts that word in there. As a parent, what would it be like for you to give up your child to suffering and agony and death? Can you imagine watching that? Would that not be more painful than suffering those things yourself? If not that is only because you don’t have perfect love. But if it would be painful for you to watch your child be tortured and then killed, imagine what it would be like if you had perfect, infinite love. The Father has infinite love for the Son, and so to watch Jesus suffer must have been more painful for the Father than it was for the Son to actually go through the suffering.
Who among us would give up his son to die for a friend? Maybe you would allow your dear child to be tortured and killed in battle for the sake of your country. But in your wildest imagination can you conceive of giving up your one and only son to suffer and die for your enemy?
3) Seeking the benefit of the beloved (life)
So the second thing we learn about love is that it is willing to sacrifice for the benefit of others. And there is no limit to how much it will sacrifice. But it is not just sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. It has to be sacrifice for the purpose of benefiting the one you love. If you go up to your wife and say, “Hey honey, look how much I love you” and then stick a fork in your eye – that is not going to make her feel very loved. She will probably think, “I was thinking something a little more along the line of maybe helping with the dishes or something.”
The sacrifice is meaningless unless it is necessary to bring about the best interests of the one you love. But what are their best interests? What benefit is so good that you should be willing to lay down your life and sacrifice in order to achieve it for them? Is it their comfort? Safety? Wealth? Education? What benefit should we be striving to deliver to those we love?

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 

The benefit God gave up His Son to secure for us is… life! Eternal life. Spiritual life from God. That is why in the very first verse of this whole book John calls Jesus “The Word of life.”

1:2 The life appeared … and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

2:25 And this is what he promised us-- even eternal life.

He brings it up again in chapter 3:14, 15. And again here in chapter 4. And again in chapter 5.

5:11 God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
20 And we are in … his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

When we started this study of 1 John almost exactly a year ago, when we got to 1:2 we looked into what this spiritual life from God is and we found that life consists in spiritual sensitivity, growth, health, strength, and liveliness.
So what is love? Love is a deep affection for a person that drives you to give up whatever you need to give up in order to bring that person to experience spiritual life and to experience it more abundantly. So should I go out of my way to make my wife comfortable? Sure – but not just for the sake of comfort. I will strive to make her comfortable as part of my effort to help her realize greater spiritual liveliness- and to have more energy and zeal for the kingdom of God. If I start providing her with comforts that detract from that I have stopped being loving.
We lay down our lives to help others realize greater spiritual sensitivity. Greater spiritual growth. Greater spiritual health and strength. More abundant spiritual life. That is love.
I mentioned earlier that the world is clueless about love. They start out with natural affection, but that becomes so contaminated with selfishness, and they are so utterly ignorant of what the other person’s best interests really are that what should be love gets twisted and perverted into the opposite of love. They have a façade of love – especially this time of year. Christmas time – good cheer and gift giving – isn’t that what love is all about? It depends on the purpose of the gifts. I saw an article in the news last week about some Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana and Illinois that are offering abortion gift cards – gift cards that can be redeemed to pay for an abortion. And if you have ever wondered how extreme spiritual blindness can get, listen to this line from the article: “Officials say the vouchers enable people to give their loved ones ‘the gift of life’ … Chrystal Struben-Hall with Planned Parenthood of Indiana said the idea is a response to economic woes that have forced many women to put health care at the bottom of their to-do list.” They are calling it a gift of life. They think that’s love. [Meanwhile I read another headline about an effort to get the nativity scene classified as hate speech. Merry Christmas.] What better way to celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ than to give someone the gift of abortion? I guess it is appropriate for this time of year – after all, part of the Christmas story is Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, where he killed all the babies out of his hatred for Christ. His legacy lives on.
That is the world’s twisted view. Granted not all the world’s perversions of love are that extreme. But really they are all in that same category, because if your love does not have the goal of spiritual life then it is not really love.
4) Initiating in the face of non-love
The fourth aspect of love we see in verse 10.

10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us… 

I said a moment ago that even the greatest human love is relatively unremarkable. It is unremarkable because it comes only after God has loved us supremely. It is no great shock that you would be willing to give someone a nickel if someone else first gave you a billion dollars. What is remarkable is God’s love for us, which was not motivated by anything we did. He sent His Son to die for us while we were yet His enemies.
Think of what an astonishing thing it is that God loved you. It makes sense to love someone who loves you. But to love someone who does not love you is a kind of love that only comes out of the heart of God. Before you came to know Christ there was no love in your heart for God. When confronted with the majesty and beauty of Almighty God, your heart was more interested in some inane TV show or ball game. If you had a choice between the glory of God and a game of solitaire on your computer you would pick solitaire. You and I so despised God when we were unbelievers that we preferred the worthless garbage of sin to the priceless treasure of His ways. There was no more love in our hearts for Him than there is life in a piece of granite or fire at the bottom of the ocean. It was when we had our backs to Him and were busy breaking every one of His commands with impunity that God fixed His electing eyes upon us and decided that we would be objects of His special love. And He began drawing you to Himself even as you resisted.
There are many mysteries and paradoxes in Scripture, but which of them is more impossible to fathom than this – that God loved me while I was His enemy? Or that He loved me at all for that matter – Spurgeon said: “You never saw a fly on the dome of St. Paul's (because) it would have been too small an object for you to see when walking round the Cathedral. Now, a fly on the dome of St. Paul's is a gigantic being, a marvelous individual, compared with you crawling about this world. Why, [the fly] bears a much larger proportion to St. Paul's than you do to this globe! What an insignificant little creature you are! Supposing you could love that fly,—it would seem a strange thing; or that an angel could love that fly,—'twere stranger still. But that God should love us, is much more a wonder.” I cannot imagine loving a mosquito, and yet a mosquito is a marvelous creature compared to what I was when God first loved me. No mosquito ever disobeyed or dishonored God.
But I did. And it would have been one thing if after having done that I fell down on my knees and said, “Oh God, I’m so sorry – please forgive me,” and that began to spark some love in His heart for me. That would have been amazing enough love. If mankind would have repented of its rebellion and sent prayers to heaven begging for mercy, and then God responded by thinking up a way to save us - that would have been remarkable love on God’s part. But that is not how it happened. God sent an ambassador of peace to us. The Innocent sought out the guilty to be reconciled. 
What do we learn about love from God’s example? First that it is real love – desire and delight from the heart. Second that it is eager to sacrifice if need be. Third that it desires the benefit of beloved – which is spiritual life. And fourth that it initiates even in the face of non-love.
Is there someone who is failing to love you? Someone in this church who has not paid attention to you, or who has snubbed you or been insensitive or rude? How about someone in your family? Your husband or wife? Your mom or dad? Are you at odds with someone in the Body of Christ, and you are waiting for that person to make the first move? You are waiting for that person to come to you and apologize before you make efforts to be reconciled? You know what God-like love would do? Love initiates. The innocent seeks out the guilty to be reconciled.
You say you can’t love that person because he has offended you? You offended God! And He gave His Son to die for you. God-like love initiates reconciliation. That is not to say sin is ignored or that there is no call for repentance. But it is to say that you choose to place your affection on the person even before he has repented.
5) Forgiving/Redeeming/Sanctifying 
One more.

1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

John used this word translated “atoning sacrifice” back in 2:2. Sometimes it is translated “propitiation.” It is such an important term I preached a whole sermon on it when we covered that verse. I am not going to repeat all that now – let me just refresh your memory on the basic idea.
The world’s greatest threat is the wrath of God. And the only solution is an appeasement of that wrath and a covering of our sin which brings us from being under God’s wrath to receiving God’s favor. It involves four parts - cleansing, appeasing or satisfying God’s wrath, reconciliation of the relationship, and redemption. Redemption refers to a purchase, and the purchase price was Jesus’ death and perfect life. 
True love is from the heart, it sacrifices for the benefit of the beloved, and redeems. Love fixes what is broken and transforms filth into beauty. It forgives at its own expense, but it does not just forgive. It does not just overlook. It cleanses and washes and purifies the beloved and repairs the damage done by their sin. This is love. The best interests of the person you love is spiritual life, and that comes from the gospel.

Conclusion: Love like God

11 Beloved, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

That verse is powerful even if you tear it out of the context and read it all by itself. God’s amazing love should motivate us to love. But in the context of this section it is saying a whole lot more than just that. It is not just that we have a great model for love. It is not just a matter of imitating God. The model of love is also the source of our love for one another. He has given us new birth and planted His DNA inside our hearts. So when it says “we ought to love” it means we ought to love in the same way a peach ought to be sweet. It is not mere imitation. It is realization of our nature. It is the living out of what God designed us to be.
So let us love one another because love comes from God. And let us love with a love that comes from the heart and is driven by genuine desire and delight in one another. And let us love with a love that sacrifices anything to bring spiritual life to others through the ministry of the gospel. And let us be proactive and initiate and pour ourselves out to those who don’t deserve it. And let us do it because that is the way God loved us. That is the measure of love.

Benediction: Eph 3:17-19 I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

God Living in You: Part 3 Knowing the Unseen God 4:11-15 

Summary: verse 12 – “Yes, it’s true that no one has seen God, but He is knowable. He is known by those who love, and (v.13) that’s demonstrated by our possession of the Spirit (which, as established earlier in the chapter, is shown to be the Spirit of God by confession of the truth about Jesus as announced by the Apostles – hence, vv.14,15). And so our confidence comes from the divine love in us (v.16), and that resemblance to God gives us confidence about Judgment Day (v.17). Fear of judgment shows the absence of love (v.18)

Introduction
How do you love the invisible?
The Possibility of Knowing God Verse 12
Why bring up invisibility?
We love to make the invisible God visible?
Addressing the false teachers who thought they saw God in visions, etc?
Common saying about God being unknowable?
The world wants to believe in agnosticism
The Proof of Knowing God
Proof #1: Love
It must be the love of God
Proof #2: The Spirit
Belief in the Gospel proves you have the Spirit - Verses 14,15
Not gifts
Agreement with the Gospel
The Apostles’ Testimony
Do you love the Word?
The Purpose of Knowing God
The meaning of “accomplished”
What the objective is not:
…therefore don’t worry about repentance
…therefore love yourself
What the objective is: Love for others
Don’t take God’s love for granted
Conclusion: How did God love you? (The Gospel)
The measure of God’s love: the Gospel
Announcements

1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; [but] if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is accomplished in us. 13 We know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him.
17 In this way, love is accomplished among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But accomplished love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not accomplished in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Introduction
How do you love the invisible? 
Many of you have probably heard the story about the little boy who was having nightmares, and came running to his mother for comfort. When she tried to explain to him that Jesus was with him when he was in his room, and that Jesus would take care of him and watch over him, his response was, “I know that, but I want someone with skin on.” That little story illustrates a classic problem all believers have faced at one level or another. How do you carry on a love relationship with an invisible God? You can’t see or hear or touch Him, and yet the thing the most important thing in your whole existence is whether you love Him.
One of the things I love about my wife is the fact that she is beautiful. But if she got into an accident and was disfigured in some terrible way, I would still love her. If she lost her voice so I couldn’t hear her, I would still love her. But if she went completely invisible, so I couldn’t see, hear, smell, touch – or have any experience of her with any of my senses - that, I think, would put a strain on our marriage. How do you carry on a love relationship with an invisible, silent, untouchable Being?

The Possibility of Knowing God - Verse 12 
Why bring up invisibility? 
The whole book of 1 John is about knowing God personally and how that plays out in practical terms. And in today’s passage he touches on the issue of God’s invisibility. Starting in verse 9 of chapter 4 the discussion has been about God’s love for us and our love for one another. But in verse 12 we hit a statement that seems to just come out of left field. 

12 No one has ever seen God

He is talking about love and assurance and all of the sudden he just states the fact that no one has ever seen God. Then he goes right back to talking about love. We just get this hit and run statement about invisibility out of nowhere.
One of the best habits you can ever get into in learning how to interpret Scripture is to ask the Lord questions about the text you are studying. And three of the most important ones to ask are these: Why do you say that? Why do you say it in just that way? Why do you say it right here, in this context? Until you can answer those questions, chances are you don’t understand what is being said, because God does not speak haphazardly in Scripture. The meaning in language comes from the connections between the words and sentences and paragraphs. So if you cannot see what the last or next sentence has to do with the one you are studying and the flow of thought, you are likely missing something.
And I don’t know of any more difficult book in the Bible to see the connections between verses – especially in this section – than 1 John. That is why no two commentaries have the same outline of the book. John does not make his connections between thoughts immediately obvious many times. He wants us to think hard about what he is saying. So, why does John, in the middle of a discussion about love, suddenly say, “No one has ever seen God”?

We love to make the invisible God visible?
My first thought was this: “God is invisible, and so we need to love one another in order to make His love visible to a watching world.” The first part of the verse is almost an exact quotation of what John said in John 1:18.

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

God the Father is invisible, and so God the Son took on human flesh to reveal that which otherwise could not be seen. So I was thinking this verse probably has a similar purpose. The problem is John doesn’t say, “No one has ever seen God but we make God visible through our love.” He does not say anything about making God visible or revealing Him or making Him manifest. So that explanation for why John brings up God’s invisibility doesn’t really work.

Addressing the false teachers who thought they saw God in visions, etc?
Probably the most common explanation is that John is refuting those people who thought they had a special relationship with God because of their visions and ecstatic religious experiences. It may be that there were people claiming to have seen God in visions, and that was the basis of their supposed nearness to God. And John is saying, “No – special nearness to God doesn’t come through going off by yourself in seclusion and going into a trance and having some vision of God. Nearness to God drives you to love His people.” The high water mark in religion is not withdrawing from society and going off alone and having a vision of God in some ecstatic, religious experience. The pinnacle of intimacy with God comes in loving others with the love of God. It is not enough to just commune with God privately. If you receive love for God and you have feelings of love for God but it doesn’t express itself in love for people, then it hasn’t achieved its purpose. Those people who would rather contemplate the truth about love than actually love a person are not in communion with God. That could be John’s meaning here.

Common saying about God being unknowable?
But as I kept reading and re-reading this section this week that explanation just did not seem quite right to me. John makes this statement about God being invisible several times in his writings. And it struck me as a little odd because both the Jewish opponents that John was writing against and the Gnostic teachers he was writing against already believed that God was invisible. In fact, the Gnostics went beyond that and said God was unknowable. They said He was so big and so transcendent that He could not be known by a human being.
That is actually a very common idea in human philosophy in general. Almost all religions teach that God is unknowable, including…Islam, modern Judaism, Bahaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Sufism, New Age religion, and Wicca. And that idea is not just a product of modern thinking – it goes way back. Socrates and Plato (who were 400 years before Christ) both taught that God was unknowable. So at the time of the writing of the New Testament that was a very widely held belief. One thing that pretty much all New Testament scholars agree on is that John was refuting teachers who were propagating early Gnostic ideas. Now, Gnosticism is kind of like the New Age movement today in that there is so much variety and so many different forms that it is really hard to nail down exactly what the belief system really is. There is so much variety within Gnostic writings. However, if there is one doctrine that is just across the board as a fundamental that is agreed upon by all the various Gnostics it is the doctrine that God is unknowable. That is right at the core for them.
So in a context like that, why does John make such a point about no one ever having seen God?

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God

John 6:46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.

1 John 4:20 anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God

God has allowed some people to see visions that represent Him, or to see certain aspects or portions of His glory, but no one besides Jesus has ever seen God in His most essential nature and the fullness of His glory. We understand that doctrine. But why keep repeating that when you are talking to people who, if they believed anything, believed that no one has ever seen God? That was a widely accepted idea, so why keep bringing it up? And why does John say it almost exactly the same way in John 1:18 and here in 1 John 4:12 - almost a word for word quotation? 
I would like to suggest the possibility that the phrase “No one has ever seen God” may have been a common saying floating around in John’s time. I wonder if that was a Gnostic slogan that was well known, and so John quotes it, and acknowledges the truth behind the words as they stand, but then he always goes on in the rest of the verse to refute the idea that God is unknowable. My suggestion is that perhaps the Gnostics were going around saying, “No one has ever seen God,” and by that they meant God is unknowable. And so John says, “Yes, it’s true that no one has ever seen God, but that doesn’t mean God is unknowable.”
That would explain why John focuses on the fact that God can be known each time when he mentions His invisibility. 

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

He is indeed knowable because of Jesus. 

12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us

Yes it is true that no one has seen God, but it is possible to know God – to have God remain in you – if you love His people.
That explanation for why John says, “No one has ever seen God” not only makes good sense of this passage, but it explains the whole thrust of the book. John is hammering and hammering away at this concept of knowing God and relating to God and having fellowship with God and remaining in Him and having Him remain in you. The whole book is about that so it would be no surprise if we found out that the false teachers were teaching that God was unknowable.
We know it was a prevalent belief at the time and John’s whole book refutes it, so I don’t feel I am going very far out on a limb to suggest that that might have been the issue at hand (even though none of the commentaries I read say that – in fact many of them say just the opposite – that John’s opponents were probably claiming to have seen God). I think the evidence points in the opposite direction.
The world wants to believe in agnosticism 
But whether I am right about that or not, one thing we know for sure is that John is very exercised to teach us that God is indeed knowable. And that is important for us, because the reason most philosophy and religion gravitate toward believing that God is unknowable is because there is a constant tug on the human heart toward that belief. It is not uncommon for people who have grown up in the church to eventually abandon Christianity and become agnostics. There are two kinds of people who call themselves agnostic. One is people who say they just don’t know what is true about God. They are ignorant, and they admit it. But the more technical meaning of the word “agnostic” is someone who believes it is impossible to know God – He is unknowable.
Think about what they are claiming to know when they say that. For people whose whole belief system revolves around not knowing, agnostics sure do claim to know a lot. They think they know for sure that God cannot be known. And I always want to ask them, “How did you come to know that?” If one of God’s attributes is that He is unknowable, how do you know so much about that particular attribute? If He is unknowable, it seems like you would not be able to have such certain knowledge of that part of His nature. The question for the agnostic is, “If you are as ignorant about God as you claim to be, perhaps you are mistaken about this one aspect of His nature that you claim to be so knowledgeable about.” Agnosticism is a self-refuting belief system.
And yet it has been a common belief system for the last 2000 years at least, and it seems especially popular in our culture today. It is fashionable these days to be agnostic. For most people it is too farfetched to be an atheist. The existence of God is so patently obvious that you really have to shut off your brain to revert to full blown atheism. But on the other hand they do not want to acknowledge God, because they do not want to have to submit to Him. If you can eliminate the possibility that God has communicated to us, then the next highest authority is man – which is exactly what they want. They want to be the standard of truth and error and right and wrong and good and bad. And so they just say, “You can’t really know for sure.”
And they think they are being humble by saying they know for sure that God cannot be known. And they think it is prideful and arrogant to claim to know God. But it is exactly the reverse. There is nothing arrogant in saying that God is capable of revealing true things about Himself to human beings. But it is the height of arrogance to say that without any help from God you used your own intelligence to figure out that there is no possible way God could make Himself known. They think they have a super-high view of God but in reality it is a low view. They imagine a god so powerless and inept that he is not even capable of saying true things about himself to human beings.
When they say that if God is infinite and we are finite then the gap between us is too great to be spanned, what they don’t realize is that that gap was spanned by God becoming a man. Jesus Christ is both God and man, and so He can come all the way down to our level in His human nature and at the same time reach all the way into heaven with His divine nature. I love that song by Point of Grace called “Great Divide.” If you listen carefully to the chorus sometimes they say, “There’s a bridge to cross the great divide,” and other times they reverse it – “There’s a cross to bridge the great divide.” That is not only clever use of language, it is profound theology. There is an infinite divide between God and man, but there is a bridge to cross that divide because there was a cross to bridge that divide.
So is God unknowable? Apart from revelation, yes. Man could never figure anything out about God if God did not reveal Himself. So even what the agnostics claim to know would actually be unknowable if it were not for God revealing Himself. But God has revealed Himself and so He is knowable.

The Proof of Knowing God
Proof #1: Love
So verse 12 shows us the possibility of knowing God. It is possible. But what about the proof of knowing God? How do you know if what you know is really God? Obviously it is possible to think you know God and be mistaken. So you can you know for sure if you are mistaken or not?
If you are working on your car, and you want to know if what you did actually fixed the problem, you test it. You take it out for a drive and see if the car works. If you want to know if your devotions are succeeding in giving you intimacy with God, how do you test it out to see if it’s working? John keeps talking about remaining in God and God remaining in you – fellowship with God, companionship with God - how do you know for sure if that is really going on or if you’re just imagining it, given the fact that God is invisible? 
There are two answers to that in this passage. The first one is in the rest of verse 12.

12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us 

You can tell if your fellowship with God is real fellowship by whether or not it produces love in your heart for His people. You test your car by taking it for a drive. You test your devotions by seeing if you love God’s people. If you are not improving in your love, then your devotions are not working – at all. Nobody comes in from the garage and says, “Hey, I got the engine fixed. I don’t know why it still doesn’t run, but I know I had a great time fixing it, which means it must be fixed.” No one in his right mind says that, but lots of people come out of their prayer closet and say, “My devotions went great. I don’t know why I’m still yelling at the kids and losing my temper and falling into an irritable mood all the time, but my walk with the Lord is going great.” If there is no increase in obedience – and especially obedience to the command to love one another with God’s love, then your efforts to draw near to God are not working. But to the degree that you do love the people of God with the love of God, your efforts to commune with Him are working.

It must be the love of God
And you might say, “That still doesn’t sound all that different from what the world is saying. They are all about loving one another. They are all about linking arms around the world and getting over their differences and living in harmony and peace and everybody loving everybody. Are they on the right track with all that?” No, they aren’t, because they don’t know what love is.
Look carefully at the wording of verse 11.

11 Dear friends, if God so loved us…

What does that word “so” refer to? It refers back to verses 9-10. God loved us with an affection in His heart that drove Him to sacrifice His own Son to bring us spiritual life. And He did that while we were still His enemies. So love is not only emotional, but it is also ultimately sacrificial, spiritually beneficial, and pre-emptive.
The world sings about universal love and harmony, and Rodney King says, “Let’s just all get along,” and they play commercials where everyone links arms and sings, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke,” but none of that is real love. John is not just saying, “God loves you therefore love others.” He is saying, “Gove loved you therefore love others with the love of God.” If God loved you in the way He loved you, then you ought also to love His people in that same way. And the world doesn’t know anything about that. Will they pitch in a few bucks to help feed a starving child in Africa? Some of them will, but they won’t do anything to help bring spiritual life to that child. They are perfectly content to just give him some food and make him as comfortable as possible in this life and then let him go off to suffer an eternity in hell. They won’t lift a finger to bring that child to know Jesus Christ. That is not love.
You can tell it is the love of God by:
Whether it rises up out of an awareness of God’s love for you
If it is a love for the people God especially loves because God loves them especially
If it is a response in your heart to the command of Jesus Christ to love one another
If it follows the pattern of God’s love that we saw last week (proactively initiating when it isn’t deserved, and sacrificing whatever is necessary to bring the person into more abundant spiritual life).
So when you bump up against that person who is so hard for you to love – consider not only the fact that God loved you but how God loved you. And that will help you love – not only because of the gratitude in your heart, but also because remembering the way in which God loved you (sending His Son to die) reminds you of your own sin. God loved me by sacrificing His Son to give me life while I was His enemy. And when I think about that it helps me look at this person I am struggling to love as a fellow victim of sin. That person who seems to be beneath your love and unworthy of your favor – he is a fellow pilgrim. He is a joint heir with you of salvation. He is someone who is being bested by the enemy just as you have so many times. And that perspective gives you compassion for the person instead of disdain. 
Proof #2: The Spirit
So that is the first proof that you truly know God. But John isn’t done. He really wants to make sure that we understand the difference between the love of God that only true believers have and the world’s natural love. And so in verse 13 he goes back to the involvement of the Holy Spirit.

13 We know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 

So in verse 12 we know He remains in us because we love people. And now here in verse 13 we know He remains in us because of the Holy Spirit. So the first proof that you are indeed knowing God is your love for His people, and the second proof is the presence of the Holy Spirit in your heart. This is almost a word for word repetition of what he said back in 3:24.

1 John 3:24 this is how we know that he remains in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Belief in the Gospel proves you have the Spirit - Verses 14, 15 
So then the question is how do you know if you have the Holy Spirit? You can not rely on the experiences you have, because those could be from a demon masquerading as an angel of light. So how do you know for sure if what is happening in you is really from the Holy Spirit? 

Not gifts
Many today think the primary way you know if you have the Spirit is through spiritual gifts – especially the miraculous ones. They think the Holy Spirit is practically synonymous with the gift of tongues. Whenever they mention the Spirit that is pretty much all they are talking about – the miraculous spiritual gifts.
It is interesting here that not only does John not make spiritual gifts the main issue, but he does not even mention them. There are some of our more extreme Charismatic friends who feel if you take away the spiritual gifts from the discussion about the Holy Spirit, there is nothing left. But John does not even mention them. There is no need to mention them here, because what he is talking about here is how to know if your experiences are from the Holy Spirit or not. And the gifts of the Spirit are not proof of anything, because they can be counterfeited. So if not by the gifts, how do you know if you have the Spirit?
Agreement with the Gospel

15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.

You can tell you have the Spirit by your acceptance of the gospel. The Spirit’s main ministry is to open your eyes to the truth – both the veracity of it and the beauty of it, so when you understand it and believe it and love it, you know you have the Spirit. 
The Apostles’ Testimony
But then the question is, “How do you know if what you are believing is really the truth? Everyone thinks they believe the truth, so how do you know if you are right or not?

14 And we (the Apostles) have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

The Apostles testify to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. John already made this point back in verse 6.

1 John 4:6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

The measure of truth and error is whether a person listens to the Apostles. They are the witnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Liberal scholars today want to sit in judgment on what the Apostles wrote. They look at the New Testament and say, “This probably happened, this probably didn’t. This was probably true of Jesus, this probably wasn’t. This verse we accept, this verse we reject,” as if they have some standard higher than the Apostles by which they judge the Apostles. 
Think of the folly of that. What do they know about Christ other than what the Apostles wrote? We know of no Christ apart from the one we read about in the New Testament. We gain zero new information about Him from academic speculation, or from visions, or feelings, or intuition, or even prayer. There is no information about God that is possible for us to have that is not contained in Scripture - none. 
The Apostles are the ones Jesus chose to pass along what He taught. And He promised to make sure they would get it right.

John 14:26 the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

So if you truly have the Holy Spirit in your heart then your heart will resonate with their message. You will be inclined toward what the Bible says.

Do you love the Word?
One of the most important tests of whether or not you are saved is this: Do you love the Word of God? Is there something deep inside you that longs to understand what is written on the pages of the Bible? When you read what is there, and you understand it, is there something in you that says, “Boy, would I love it if that principle were being lived out in my life”? A phony Christian reads the Bible and sees the demands of Christ and secretly recoils. They see the principles on how we are to live and they think, “Oh, living like that would be awful. I don’t think I would like that at all.” If you have the Holy Spirit living inside you then there will be a profound love in your heart for the Word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Purpose of Knowing God
So, is there a possibility of knowing God? Yes! Is there proof that your knowledge of God is real? Yes - love for His people and faith in His Word through the Holy Spirit. But what about the purpose of knowing God? Back up for a moment to verse 12. In verse 12 John tells us two things that we can count on if we love one another.

12 …if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is accomplished in us.

And here John introduces a concept that he will develop in the verses to come – accomplished love. (Or your version might say “perfected love”)
The meaning of “accomplished” 
We have seen this word once before in 1 John – back in 2:5.

1 John 2:5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. 

That word is traditionally translated “perfect” or “perfected..,” but that is not the best translation of the word because our word perfect brings to mind the idea of flawless. And that is not what this word usually means. The most basic meaning of that word is to accomplish a purpose. It is the Greek word teleioo. It is the root of our words telephone, telegraph, television, telemetry – all those words that speak of a signal starting somewhere and traveling to some destination. It means to reach or accomplish a goal or to realize a purpose.

James 2:22 [Abraham’s] faith was made complete by what he did. (when he obeyed God’s command to sacrifice Isaac)

That doesn’t mean his faith had been flawed, and then it became flawless when he carried out the action. It means when he carried out the action the goal or purpose of his faith was realized. That is why the word is often translated “mature,” because maturity is the goal or purpose of a living thing.
So what John is saying is that when God loves you, He has a purpose or goal in mind. It is supposed to go somewhere. There is an objective to be achieved.

What the objective is not:
What is that objective? If God is loving you in order to accomplish something, what is it that He is trying to accomplish? Some of you have come from churches where there was a huge emphasis on God’s love, and yet that preaching didn’t seem to feed your soul. Why is that? If learning about God’s love for you is so important and so helpful, why do you sometimes get the feeling, when you hear some of the modern preaching about God’s love, that that preaching is shallow?
Preaching about God’s love is either good or bad depending upon the conclusions that are drawn from it. It is not just “God loves you.” It is “God loves you therefore…” Whenever you hear or read anyone teaching on the love of God, always listen for the “therefore.” God loves you, therefore… what? And sometimes you have to listen carefully, because they don’t state the conclusion explicitly – it is just implied.

…therefore don’t worry about repentance 
I have heard sermons about the love of God where the “therefore” seemed to be this: “God loves you, therefore you don’t have to worry about the sin in your life. He loves you just as you are unconditionally, therefore just ignore your guilt and don’t worry about repentance.” There are millions of lost people who think they are saved because of that heresy. It comes right out of the pit of hell.

…therefore love yourself
Another bad one is this one: “God loves you, therefore love yourself more.” Contrary to what you hear from many who try to mix psychology with the Bible, the Bible does not command us to love ourselves. When the Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, that is not a command to love yourself. It is an assumption that you already do love yourself. If people didn’t already love themselves then God would not make that the standard for how you are to love others. If you didn’t love yourself, and God said, “Love your neighbor that way,” then that would mean, “Don’t love your neighbor.” God makes our love for ourselves the standard because our love for ourselves is so extreme. You treat yourself like a king. Your wish is your command. In fact, you treat yourself better than a king. If you are thirsty you get a drink, if you have an itch you scratch it, if your nose is running, you wipe it; if the king’s nose is running, you let him wipe it himself. Every time you inhale a breath of air it is because you love yourself. 

Ephesians 5:29 No one ever hated his own body

There is a certain natural care for yourself that is built into you that isn’t wrong. Of course you have to feed yourself and take care of yourself so you can function.
But beyond that our sinful hearts are inclined toward a kind of self-love that places self ahead of others as a priority. And that is sin. In fact, it is a sign of the wickedness of the end times.

2 Timothy 3:1-4 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God

The greatest enemy to true love is selfishness. Our flesh is shot through with the cancer of self-love. And that cancer manifests itself in a lot of different ways: Self-centeredness, self-seeking, self-indulgence, self-pleasing, self-pity, self-sufficiency, self-consciousness, self-righteousness, and self-glorification. And all of that destroys love. So if someone comes along and says, “Jesus loves you therefore love yourself more,” get as far away from that teacher as you possibly can.

What the objective is: Love for others
So what is God’s objective in loving us? So if it is not “God loves you therefore don’t worry about your sin,” and it is not “God loves you therefore love yourself,” then what is it? God loves you therefore what?
There are a number of answers to that question. Scripture gives us several “therefore’s” when it talks about God’s love for us. But the one John is concerned with here is in verse 11.

11 Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.

God loved us by sending His Son as Savior; therefore we ought to love one another with that same kind of love.
God’s objective in loving you is realized when you love your brothers and sisters in Christ with the love of God. Is that the only objective God has in loving you? No, but it is an important one. God has reasons for loving you. And one of those reasons is bring about love in your heart for brothers and sisters in Christ who are hard to love. If you ever find yourself asking, “God, why did You decide to love me?” One answer is, “I decided to love you because I wanted you to love My people.” And so if we fail to love, God’s love does not realize its goal in our lives.
You see there is a sense in which you are a steward of God’s love for you. You are not free to just enjoy it any way you please. If some generous friend came up to you and said, “I know you are struggling financially, but I want you and your wife to be able to get away. So here’s $5000. Take it and go make your wife really happy this weekend.” If you take that money and buy yourself a Rolex watch, that money is not fulfilling its intended purpose. It was given to you for a purpose, and that purpose is not being realized. It is exactly the same situation with God’s love. God gives you His love and says, “Here, take this and go make My people really happy.” So if we don’t love the people of God, God’s love for us is not accomplishing its purpose.
Don’t take God’s love for granted
So when you hear shallow preaching about God’s love for you, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is very important for you to understand how much God loves you and in what way God has loved you. It is a good thing to notice when you are being loved. Love should never be ignored or taken for granted. Our natural tendency is to notice when we are not loved and take it for granted when we are loved. In our flesh we just sort of expect to be loved all the time as a matter of course. And so we don’t think much of it when we receive love. But when someone fails to love us as they should – that gets our attention.
It should be just the opposite. When people fail to love us it should hardly even register on our radar screen, because we aren’t on the lookout for that. But when we do receive love we should take careful notice of that. It should fill us with gratitude and responses of love. That is why so much of Scripture is devoted to drawing our attention to God’s love for us.
So in those times when you collide with a person who is especially hard to love, it will help you to recall to your mind the truth about God’s love for you. Don’t let your thoughts dwell on how that person fails to love you properly. Fix your thoughts on how God succeeds in loving you – and the obligation that places on you to love others in that same manner.
How do you carry on a love relationship with an invisible Being? He is invisible, but He is not distant. He gives you His Holy Spirit. And through His Spirit He opens your eyes to the beauty and truth of the gospel. And your heart loves the truth that it sees, and the God who opened your eyes and inclined your heart to that truth. And you respond by obeying that truth and loving those He loves. And He responds by opening your eyes even wider, and teaching you more and more. And you respond with greater love for His people. That is knowledge of God.

Conclusion: How did God love you? (The Gospel)
Raise your hand if you fall short in this matter of loving others. OK, so how many of us need to take some more time to consider God’s love for us? Let’s close out our time by doing that - considering not only the fact of God’s love for us, but the manner in which He loved us. Verses 14 and 15 are another one of John’s little two-verse summaries of the entire gospel. What is the overall message of the New Testament? What is the basic summary of what the Apostles testified to about Christ? There it is – right there in verses 14 and 15.
There are two parts to the gospel: verse 14 is about what God did, and verse 15 is about what you have to do. What did God do?

14 the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 

And what is required of us if we want to be saved?

15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.

That is the gospel. God provided for our salvation through Christ, and we can be saved and come to know Him personally if we confess Christ. That is the message that your heart will be inclined to embrace and delight in if the Holy Spirit is in you.
The Father sent His Son as a Savior because we needed saving. According to Matthew 1:21 we needed saving from our sins. In our pride we imagine that we can clean up the mess of sin in our hearts by our own efforts. A little self-help, some counseling, a few resolutions, and we will be good as new. But the reality is sin in our hearts is like a virus that is infecting every cell in our body. And none of the band-aids of our self-improvement efforts will even begin to touch the problem. That is why you were sinning 20 years ago and you are sinning today. Sin holds us by the neck in a vice grip that we are powerless to break.
According to Acts 2:40 another thing we need to be saved from is this corrupt generation. We live in a world that drags us away from God, and it is impossible to swim upstream against that current on your own strength. Apart from a Savior you would just get swept away to hell with all the rest.
According to Romans 11:26 we need to be saved from godlessness. God is the most wonderful, most delightful, most marvelous treasure in existence, and our hearts are naturally dead to Him. In our natural state we are more interested in a ball game or TV show than the presence of the Almighty God. That is not how it should be, but that is how it is – and that is a disaster for us, because if your affections are so messed up that you delight in what is worthless and are indifferent toward what is infinitely good you will inevitably waste your life. So we need to be saved from godlessness. 
James 5:20 says we need to be saved from death. It is absolutely guaranteed that you are going to die – and relatively soon. And, apart from knowing Jesus Christ, you will spend eternity in hell. That is why Jude 1:23 says we need to be saved from the fire. And most importantly and most urgently of all, Romans 5:9 says we need to be saved from God’s wrath. Because God is perfectly holy He has infinite hatred for what is evil, which means He is enraged with furious wrath toward us because of our sin.
Our need for a Savior was desperate beyond words. And so God the Father sent a Savior – His own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you confess Him – if you believe what He said, trust His Word, rely on Him alone to save you, and entrust your life into His hands, you will be saved.
The measure of God’s love: the Gospel
That is the gospel. That is the measure of God’s love for you. So often we measure God’s love for us by the relative difficulty or ease of our circumstances. Things get rough and we wonder about His love, and then things smooth out and we think, “Oh, He really is loving after all.” When obvious blessings come your way it is a good thing to recognize those as gestures of God’s love. But those are at the fringe of the issue. The real issue in God’s love is the gospel.

Isaiah 54:10 Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Benediction: Hosea 6:3 Let us acknowledge the LORD; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."

God Living in You: Part 4 God Sent His Son as Savior 4:14-17 

Summary: God sent a Savior because we needed saving from sin, this world, godlessness, death, hell, and wrath. The Sender is the Father, the Savior is the Son, and the Saved are those who, by the Spirit, embrace the gospel. You have confidence you have done that when God’s love for you realizes its purpose in your life.

Introduction: The Coming Judgment
The announcement of the Savior
Who needs a Savior?
The Sender (Father)
Trinity
The Savior (Son)
Saved from what?
Distraction Disasters
The horror of Judgment Day
Sins
The World
Godlessness
Death
Hell
Wrath
The saved
Confession
Proof of God’s love (Holy Spirit)
Proof of Fellowship
Confidence
We are like Him
Love is proof of salvation
Conclusion
Devotionals
Day 1 – The Coming Judgment
Day 2 Savior
Day 3
Day 4 – The Saved
Day 5 - Proof of Fellowship
We are like Him

1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God; [but] if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is accomplished in us. 13 We know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him.
17 In this way, love is accomplished among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But accomplished love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not accomplished in love. 
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Introduction: The Coming Judgment
The announcement of the Savior
Let’s begin by putting ourselves in the shoes of those shepherds in Luke 2. Watching sheep in the daytime was probably dull enough, but what could be more boring that watching sheep sleep? They were on guard watching for wild animals. But no wild animals were coming, so they were watching nothing – hour after hour as they tried every trick in the book to keep their eyes open, and then all of the sudden…

9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them

They went from watching nothing to seeing one of the most spectacular sights ever witnessed by a human being. If you read the Old Testament you know that an angel of the Lord is something far greater than an ordinary angel. And then it got even better.

9 … and the glory of the Lord shone around them

Bright light in the middle of the night would be unsettling enough. But this isn’t just any light. It is the very glory of God.

9 … and they were terrified.

I guess! Their brains do not even have any categories to process what is happening here. All they know for sure is number one, this thing is supernatural, and number two, if this spectacular being is no”t friendly, they are in real trouble.

10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. 
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel

Literally “a multitude of a heavenly army appeared” (host means army). Evidently they have the appearance of fierce warriors, and there was a vast number of them.
So first the one angel appeared, then the glory of God lights up the ground like daytime, and now a huge multitude of angelic warriors light up the entire sky. And this whole thing is not only bright, but it is loud.

13 a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, 14 "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." 

I am guessing they woke up the sheep. And when the concert was over, these stunned shepherds watched as the angels left and went back to heaven (v.15).
I know there are some Christians who say that we should not celebrate Christmas. I have heard people say, “Why celebrate the birth of Jesus? What really matters is His death and resurrection.” If the arrival of the Savior into the world didn’t matter all that much then I need someone to explain to me why God sent an angel of the Lord, displayed His glory, and then sent the heavenly host to appear in the skies when that “unimportant” birth was announced. God never did that for any other event in history - ever. If God says the birth of the Savior is good news of great joy, what more reason do we need than that to celebrate it?
So we celebrate Christmas. And if all the shopping and hubbub of the holidays makes you forget what Christmas is all about, just go back to what those angels said in Luke 2:11. Christmas is the good news of great joy that a Savior has been born. Savior means rescuer or deliverer. The people in Israel at the time were waiting for the Christ (Messiah) to arrive to deliver or rescue them from the domination of Rome. They wanted a political Messiah. They very much felt the need to be rescued because their country was controlled by an enemy. So when they heard the words “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior (rescuer) has been born to you” they were very excited about that.
Who needs a Savior?
But what about us? If you are not being overrun by an enemy, and your life is actually fairly comfortable, how do you get excited about the arrival of a savior? If you do not feel any real need to be rescued from anything, a savoir is really no big deal. If you are drowning in the middle of the ocean, the arrival of the Coast Guard is the sweetest sight you have ever seen. But if you are lounging on the deck of your yacht, the Coast Guard is probably more of an annoyance than anything else. To appreciate a savior you need to be in a lot of trouble and know that you are in a lot of trouble.
So let’s spend our time this morning thinking through exactly what it means to have a Savior from heaven. We have been studying verse by verse through the book of 1 John, and in the wonderful providence of God it just so happens that we are in the most Christmassy verse in the book – if not in the whole Bible. In verse 14 of chapter 4 John says almost exactly the same thing as the angel said in Luke.2. The good news of great joy in Luke 2:11 was…

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you 

And…

1 John 4:14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

So 1 John 4:14 is the Christmas story and there are three parts to it: The Sender, the Savior, and the Saved.

The Sender (Father)
The Sender is the Father.

14 the Father has sent his Son…

And ultimately the reason why the Father sent His Son here was so the Son could bring us to the Father.

John 14:5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" 6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 

Jesus came here as the way to the Father. That was the very first thing John told us in the opening paragraph of the book of 1 John. He starts out the whole book by saying Jesus appeared so that we could have fellowship with the Father. The Son came to give us life in order that we might come to the Father and know the Father and have fellowship with the Father. So if that is the reason why the Savior was sent into this world – if that is why Christmas happened, then if you do not know the Sender you miss Christmas altogether.
Trinity
And the key thing we learn about the Sender in this passage is His relationship to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Have you noticed that the whole Trinity is in verses 13-14?

13 …he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – that is the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is one reason why we know that not all religions worship the same God. The God of the Bible is a Trinity, and every other religion teaches a god who is not a Trinity. 
And if you are not familiar with the doctrine of the Trinity you need to be, because there are many who want to call themselves Christians who deny the Trinity, for example those in the Oneness movement, such as the Oneness Pentecostals. T.D. Jakes is in that category – he does not believe in the Trinity. Very often people like that will argue that we shouldn’t believe in the Trinity because the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible. And they are right. (Of course the word “Bible” doesn’t appear in the Bible either, so that is kind of a self-refuting argument.)
The reason the word “Trinity” does not appear in the Bible is because it is just a word we use to describe a group of five doctrines that are in the Bible. It is just a shorthand term we use to refer to those five doctrines. And these are the 5 doctrines:
The Father is God
The Son (Jesus Christ) is God
The Holy Spirit is God
There is only one God.
The three persons – the Father, Son, and Spirit – are not the same person. They are distinct from each other. It is not that sometimes He is the Father and other times He is the Son and other times the Spirit. They all three exist simultaneously as separate, distinct persons. And one of the ways we know that is because of the interactions they have with each other and the relationships between them.

13 he has given us of his Spirit. 

The Father has given the Spirit. There is a subject-object distinction. The Father is the one doing the giving, and the Holy Spirit is the one being given.

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

Again, the Son and the Father are not the same person – the Father sent the Son.

15 … Jesus is the Son of God

No one is the son of himself.
In 1:2 we saw that in eternity past the Son was with the Father. In 2:1 the Son speaks to the Father in our defense. And we see the same sort of thing in the Gospel of John.

John 5:20 the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.

John 17:1 Jesus … prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.

John 17:11 I am coming to you Holy Father

John 17:25 Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, 

Recently someone asked me about how to teach the Trinity to a young child. All you have to do is teach them those five statements. Teach them these answers:
•	Is the Father God? Yes.
•	Is Jesus God? Yes.
•	Is the Holy Spirit God? Yes.
•	How many Gods are there? One.
•	Are they all the same Person? No.
And that last one is tricky for young kids so if your child has a tough time with that last one, then instead of asking, “Are the three persons of the godhead distinct?” just ask,
•	Does the Father love Jesus? Yes.
•	Does Jesus love the Father? Yes.
•	Does Jesus know the Father? Yes.
•	Did the Father send Jesus into this world as Savior? Yes.
•	Did the Father give us the Holy Spirit? Yes.
•	Does the Spirit teach us the truth about Jesus? Yes.
That is what we mean by distinct Persons. And if you understand that enough to be able to answer those questions, you understand what the Bible says about the Trinity.
In this passage the focus is on the relationships within the Trinity. All three roles are crucial for us to experience Christmas. If the Father doesn’t send His Son into the World as our Savior, we don’t get Christmas.

The Savior (Son)
And if the Son doesn’t lay down His life for us so He can provide the way to the Father, there is no Christmas.

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

The Sender is God the Father, and the Savior is God the Son.
Saved from what?
But when we talk about being saved, what does that mean exactly? Saved from what?

Distraction Disasters
What kind of trouble are we in? A lot of folks are afraid that we are right now on the verge of a total economic collapse. This could be a collapse even worse than the Y2K collapse, and the one that followed 9/11. (Oh, I guess neither one of those actually happened, did they?)
But failed predictions of doom never slow the prophets of doom down – or the market for those prophecies. There is a strange addiction our culture has to predicting catastrophe. At any given time it seems there are always two or three looming calamities that are going to bring the world to an end. Recently it has been global warming. They are not sure if that is going to kill us by flooding us or burning us or starving us or maybe even freezing us. But one way or another, to hear the teachers in the public school system tell it, our only hope of not being destroyed by global warming is if some other catastrophe kills us off first. And there are plenty of candidates for that. First the cell phones were going to give us all brain cancer. My children were taught in school that the cell phones are killing the bees, and pretty soon all plant life is going to die. Not only that, but the world is going to completely run out of gasoline within the next couple years. But we won’t need it anyway because we will all be dead from the ozone hole or nuclear radiation or all the animals going extinct, or mad cow disease, or bird flu, or Ebola or something.
Not long ago the scare was the depletion of the rainforests. You don’t hear as much about that anymore because they were supposed to have been all gone by now, and we should all be dead. I think AIDS was supposed to have killed us all by now as well.
I remember hearing a presentation about the loss of topsoil every year that made it sound like by the time I was 30 years old there would be no farming possible anywhere in the world. When I was in high school they were predicting another ice age. And before that everyone was sure the world would soon come to an end by a nuclear holocaust. Back in the days of the cold war they were just sure someone was going to accidentally bump the nuclear bomb button with his elbow and set off a nuclear war that would blow up the entire planet. And when I was a kid they were telling us that by the time we graduated from high school the entire country would be 50 feet deep in garbage. The experts assure us it is only a matter of time before all life on earth is destroyed by a collision with a huge meteorite. 
And then there is the scare that never does go out of style – overpopulation. We are going to have so many people that there won’t be enough resources and we will all starve. That was supposed to have happened a while back as well, and yet here we are today with modern farmers producing more food every year than every human being on earth could possibly eat.
It seems the reports of our own demise have been greatly exaggerated. Why does mankind have such a fascination with predicting doom? Could it be that Satan puts those fears in their minds in order to distract them from the one global catastrophe that really is coming? There is a disaster looming on the horizon that is far worse than all those other disasters combined – Judgment Day. When God comes and judges this world the people will be wishing the mountains would fall on them. They will be begging for a meteorite to come put them out of their misery. The world will be wishing and praying for natural disasters at that time, because it is much better to suffer a natural disaster than a supernatural disaster. Maybe that is why they always seem to be not only predicting an ultimate natural disaster that will end the world, but they almost seem to be rooting for it. They would be a lot better off if that were all that were going to happen to them. If all mankind had to worry about was physical death, that would be nothing compared to what they have in store when their Creator comes to this world on Judgment Day.
The horror of Judgment Day
Judgment Day will be the greatest horror this world has ever seen. God will render the final verdict on everyone’s eternal destiny and there will be no appeals, no arguments, no second chances. Jesus described that Day in Matthew 25, and He said there will only be two verdicts. To some He will say:

Matthew 25:34 Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 

And to the rest He will say:

41 Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

46 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

Have you ever felt pain in the pit of your stomach because you realized you were in real trouble? We take the authorities in our lives with varying levels of seriousness. If the librarian at the public library scolds you for getting a book back late, that is one thing. But if a police officer pulls you over, that you take a little more seriously. And if the IRS calls you and says you are going to jail for a long time, that will really make you sick to your stomach. Have you ever had one of those times in your life when you realized, “Uh oh – this isn’t some small deal. I’m in real trouble”? On Judgment Day you will stand before the highest and most powerful Authority in the universe. And if you are in trouble on that day it will be eternal trouble, with absolutely no way out.
And because of the sin and rebellion of mankind, all of us – every last one – are in eternal trouble. That is why we need a Savior. So when those Jewish shepherds heard the announcement about a Savior being born in Bethlehem that night, and they were excited because they imagined a military leader who could rescue them from their enemies, they did not know the half of it.

Sins
I did a quick study this week of what the Bible says we need to be saved from. According to Matthew 1:21 we needed saving from our sins.

Matthew 1:20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared (Joseph) him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." 

What is the real threat that we face? What is the calamity that this Rescuer came to rescue us from? Not global warming or nuclear war. Our sins.
Sin is anything that happens in your heart that conflicts with the will and desires of God. Doing anything God has forbidden is sin. Failing to do anything God has commanded is sin. Loving something God hates or not loving something or someone God loves is sin. Preferring anything above nearness God is sin.
And every last one of us is shot through with sin from birth. In our pride we imagine that we can clean up the mess of sin in our hearts by our own efforts. A little self-help, some counseling, go to church, a few resolutions, and we will be good as new. But the reality of sin in our hearts is like a virus that is infecting every cell in our body. And none of the band-aids of our self-improvement efforts will even begin to touch the problem. That is why you were sinning 20 years ago and you are sinning today. Your efforts to clean up the mess are getting you nowhere and they never will. Sin holds us by the neck in a death grip that we are powerless to escape. The only way to break free is for a Savior to be sent from heaven who can break the power of sin over us.

The World 
Another thing we need to be saved from is the world.

Acts 2:40 (Peter) pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." 

We live in a world that drags us away from God, and it is impossible to swim upstream against that current on your own strength. The people you work with, unbelieving friends, family, the media, the entertainment world, the government school system - it is all in a mad rush away from God and His ways - and unless a Savior comes from heaven to rescue you, you will just get swept away to hell with all the rest. The pressure and influence of this world is impossible for us to overcome on our own. They are so good at making righteousness seem boring and unappealing. They are so good at making sin look exciting and attractive and satisfying. The world is so adept at making God look undesirable and unsatisfying and without a Savior from heaven we could no more break free from that than a fish could reach down and pluck himself out of the ocean.

Godlessness 
A third catastrophe from which we need to be rescued is godlessness.

Romans 11:26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The deliverer (savior) will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. 

Being saved means being rescued from godlessness.
God is the most wonderful, most delightful, most marvelous treasure in existence, and yet our hearts are naturally dead to Him. In our natural state we are more interested in a ball game or TV show or comic book than the presence of the Almighty God. Given a choice between experiencing nearness to God and browsing the Internet, our natural hearts prefer the latter.
That is not how it should be, but that is how it is – and that is a disaster for us, because if your affections are so messed up that you delight in what is worthless and are indifferent toward what is infinitely good you will inevitably waste your life. You will inevitably make decisions that will result in an absolutely wasted existence. And you will destroy yourself by preferring that which produces death over that which gives life.
So we need to be saved from godlessness. And there is not one thing you can do to reach inside your own heart and change godlessness into love for God. It can only be done if God sends a Savior from heaven.

Death
Another disaster we need to be saved from is death.

James 5:20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death 

It is absolutely guaranteed that you are going to die – and relatively soon. The death rate in the United States is still one each. Your days are numbered. You are no different from the person who goes to the doctor and is diagnosed with an incurable, fatal disease. In less than 10 decades every one in this room will have experienced what it is like to die and be thrust into eternity. And very soon after you die everyone who knew you will die and your existence on this earth will be completely forgotten. 
And the only possible rescue from death is a Savior who has the power to conquer death - a Savior sent by the Father who can and will raise you from the dead and give you an incorruptible body that will never wear out, never be subject to injury or disease or decay of any kind, and that will thrive in health and joy and wellbeing forever. 

Hell
But without a Savior like that physical death will become spiritual death, which is what the Bible calls hell. Hell is a place where God punishes people for their sins. That is why Jude 1:23 says another thing we need to be saved from is the fire. Hell is a place of outer darkness, utter aloneness, and excruciating pain and torment that will make you scream and cry and grind your teeth in anger for ever and ever and ever. There is no way out. After you have suffered worse than any torture victim has ever suffered on earth, and you have been in that agony for 10,000 years, you won’t have any less time left to serve. That is what eternal death means.
And if you think you can escape that by being a relatively good person, you are wrong. If you have sinned at all you are guilty of cosmic treason against God and no amount of good deeds you could ever do could ever erase that guilt. The only way to escape is on the basis of the blood of a Savior who suffered all of your punishment in your place on the cross. That is why no other religion could ever save you. No matter how good their ethical system is, and no matter how wonderful their sacred writings are, and no matter how friendly their people are, every other religion in the world has the same fatal flaw – no one paid the penalty for your sin in your place. Which means you have to pay it yourself.

Wrath
So we need a Savior. Why? To save us from sin, and the world, and godlessness, and death, and hell, and one more - the worst and most devastating and inescapable calamity of all - the disaster of all disasters – the wrath of God.

Romans 5:9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 

There is no problem bigger than being on the receiving end of God’s furious anger. And if your conception of God is that He is nothing but a big, harmless, innocuous Santa Claus who wouldn’t hurt a fly, you need to read the Bible.

Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men 

God is enraged at mankind in general and you specifically if you are not saved. According to Reveation 14:10 you…

Revelation 14:10 …will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. [and you] will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.

That is the greatest of all catastrophes, and it is a problem you have zero ability to fix. It is absolutely impossible for you to reconcile your relationship with a furiously angry God, unless He sends a Savior from heaven that can save you from His wrath by suffering His wrath in your place.

The saved 
Our need for a Savior is desperate beyond words so God the Father sent a Savior – His own dear Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But is all that really the meaning of Christmas? I said at the beginning that Christmas was all about God sending His Son into the world as Savior. But there is actually more to the Christmas story than just that.
If at your house everyone spent a whole lot of time and money and thought and effort into picking out just the right gifts, and they wrapped them all up and placed them under the tree, and you just left them there under the tree year after year collecting dust and never unwrapped any of them, that would not be a very satisfying Christmas, would it? Why? Because gift giving has a purpose. And that purpose is not realized if no one receives the gift.
How many of you children who are here like to opt out of Christmas? December 25 comes around, and you see all the presents under the tree, and you think, “You know what? I’m just not really into it this year. I think I’ll just sit this one out.” So while everyone else is opening presents, you just sit in your bedroom and do some homework or clean up your room or something. Does anyone do that?
No. You would have to be crazy to opt out of Christmas and decide not to be involved, right? But the sad fact is most of the people you know are doing exactly that. Christmas is the celebration of the arrival of a Savior into the world. So anyone who is not being saved by that Savior is missing Christmas. They might be able to open some presents, but that is not what Christmas is. Those presents just remind us of the greatest and most important present – salvation. That is what Christmas is. And most people are not going to get Christmas this year – or any year.
You see, the meaning of Christmas is not just verse 14. It is verses 14 and 15. The Christmas story does not end with God giving the greatest gift ever given. The Christmas story is completed when we receive that gift.

15 If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.

The purpose of Christmas is realized when God gives His Son as a gift and you receive that gift by confessing Christ.
Confession
To confess Christ means to believe what He said, trust His Word, rely on Him alone to save you, and entrust your life into His hands. And if you do that, you will be saved. Reject His Words and you reject the Savior. Refuse to entrust your life to Him and insist on being the boss of your own life – and you just refused the only Savior. Prefer something in this world above Jesus, and you forfeit salvation. Hang on to some treasured sin that you think you just can’t give up, and you forfeit eternal life. But if you let go of this world and embrace Him in faith, you will be saved. And only then do you experience Christmas. The sending of a Savior into the world means nothing to you unless you are saved by that Savior.

Proof of God’s love (Holy Spirit)
I said a moment ago that gift giving has a purpose. We give gifts as expressions of our love, right? Isn’t that the point of a gift? Gift giving achieves its purpose only when the person receiving the gift receives it as a gesture of love from the giver.
And that is true in a much greater way when we receive God’s gift, because not only is His giving the gift an act of love, but our very act of receiving it is another demonstration of God’s love for us. God sent His Son to be the Savior for the world. That shows God’s universal love. And when you respond to Him in faith that shows His love for you as an individual, because the only way a person can respond in faith is if God has given you His Spirit.

2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God

13 We know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

If you believe the Gospel that proves you have been given the Holy Spirit because only the Spirit can incline your heart to accept the gospel. You see, mankind’s problem is not just that we are all drowning and in need of a life raft - we also have the problem of hard hearts that refuse to get into the life raft that God has thrown to all of us. And so when God sacrifices His only Son to provide the life raft, and then He gives you His Holy Spirit to move your heart to want to get into the life raft, that is love upon love. Sending His Son shows His love for the whole world, and you accepting salvation through faith shows His special love for you individually. 
That is why you need the whole Trinity to experience Christmas. If the Father doesn’t send His Son as Savior, there is no possibility of Christmas. If the Son doesn’t lay down His life for us so He can provide the way to the Father, there is no Christmas. And if the Holy Spirit doesn’t work in your heart to produce faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that when you hear the gospel you love it, and when you see God’s commands you delight in them, then there is no Christmas for you. The Father sends the Savior, the Son, Jesus Christ is the Savior, and the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and inclines your heart to be saved. 

Proof of Fellowship 
But how do you know if your confession is true saving confession?

16 And so we know and rely on the love God has in us.

The most natural translation is “in us” not “for us.” What does it mean for God to have love in you? It means the same thing as the “accomplished” love that we talked about last week. God loves you, and He loves you in order to accomplish a purpose. And the purpose He wants to achieve by loving you is for His love to spread to others through you – for you to love His people.
And what verse 16 is saying is that is where our confidence lies. That is how you know your confession was genuine. We know for sure that we have fellowship with God and are saved because we obey Him, and because His love flows through us to those around us who are hard to love. When that is happening in your life you know you are saved because..

16 … God is love. Whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him.

The true essence of God (that Aristotle and Plato and the Gnostics said was unknowable) is very much knowable. The true essence of God is so characterized by love that if you have that love in you, you have God in you.
And so if you remain in love (that is, if you faithfully persevere – the promise does not apply if your supposed conversion only lasts a short time), if the continual exchange of love between you and God results in you having a special, Christ-like love for the people of God, that is proof of true fellowship with God.
Confidence 

17 In this way, love’s goal is accomplished in us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 

You do not have to be afraid on Judgment Day because you are like Jesus.

We are like Him
Now, back in 3:2 he said we are not like Him, and we will not be until the Second Coming when we see Him as He is. So his point here is not that we are exactly like Him in every way. But we can be like Him in our relationship to the Father. Jesus had an ideal relationship with the Father because He perfectly followed the Father’s will. And through Christ we can have that same kind of relationship to the Father.

John 15:10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.

What do you look toward for confidence on the Day of Judgment? When someone asks you the question, “If you were to die right now do you know for sure you would go to heaven?” how do you answer? If you found out that Judgment Day was today, and you were scheduled for 11:30, as you gathered up your stuff from the pew to get ready to go stand before the almighty Judge, would you be nervous? And as you were standing in line and you heard one after another after another after another – lifelong Christian leaders, pastors, evangelists; and to one after another the great Judge says, “Depart from Me. I never knew you,” and you start wondering if He is going to say that to you – when doubts about your salvation sneak into your mind, where do you run for refuge? Are you safe on that day because years ago you made a decision to invite Jesus into your heart? Or you signed a card? You raised your hand in an altar call? Prayed the sinner’s prayer? Got baptized? Fell on your face in a flood of tears over your sin and invited Jesus into your heart? None of that is evidence of anything. As you stand there in line, those people who were told to depart into eternal torment in hell, as they are walking away will pass by you and say, “Whatever you do – don’t put any confidence in any of that.” Those people will be saying, “Lord, Lord, did we not sign a card? Did we not walk an aisle, pray a prayer, make a decision, go to church, get baptized, read our Bibles, lead people to faith in Christ?” On their way down to hell they will say to you, “If that’s the stuff you’re counting on – don’t even bother. It doesn’t fly.”

Love is proof of salvation 
What does fly? Accomplished love.

17 In this way, love’s goal is accomplished in us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 

When His love achieves its goal in you, that removes fear of judgment. No one is saved because of a decision alone. No one is saved because of a prayer. The proof of your salvation does not lie in the past – it lies in the present. Whatever happened to you in the past, if it is not being lived out in your life in the present in Christ-likeness, it will not save you. But where there is a transformed life through an acceptance of and belief in the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that transformed life casts out any fear of being condemned on Judgment Day.

Conclusion
Most people never know the beauty of Christmas because they have their eyes closed to the ugliness that necessitated Christmas. God’s sending a Savior into the world means nothing if our greatest threat is some natural disaster. But if we understand the unspeakable horror of Judgment Day and the wrath of God and the real trouble we were in, then the sending of a Savior is truly good news of great joy.
Those of you who are here this morning without certainty in your heart that you are saved, please talk to me or your small group leader about that before you leave. And those who do have certainty – spend this Christmas season really celebrating Christmas. Rejoice in a Father who sent His Son to save you. Rejoice in a Savior who came to bring you to the Father. And rejoice in a Holy Spirit who was given to you by the Father to enable you to believe.

Benediction: Jude 24-25 To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy- 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

God Living in You: Part 5 Why You Cannot Love God without Loving His People 4:18-5:1 

Summary: Having God’s love achieve its purpose in you (so that you love your brothers) is proof that God remains in you, and you use that proof to cast out the bad kind of fear (which drives you away from God) but not the good kind (which keeps you from sin). Love for God and brother are inseparable because the source of love for both God and brother is the same, the only valid physical expression of love or God is to His people , the first and second commandment are one, and you cannot love the father without loving the child.

Loving God’s People = Proof You Love God
Review
You don’t feel guilty when you show love
But what about fearing God?
Casting out fear
But what if my repentance is in question?
Why are love for God and love for brother inseparable?
Empty claims
The idea that you can love God and not His people is common
1)	Because the source of love for God also produces love for brothers
2)	Because the only valid expression of love to God is love to His people
3)	Because the greatest and second commands are one command. 21
4)	Because you can’t love the Father without loving the child (5:1)
Family Resemblance

18 There is no fear in love. But accomplished love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not accomplished in love. 
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.

Loving God’s People = Proof You Love God
Review
We have been studying through the book of 1 John and are now approaching the end of chapter 4. In this chapter John has been speaking about what he calls “accomplished love.” Your translation probably says “perfect love,” but the word points to achieving a goal or accomplishing a purpose, more than being flawless or perfect. The idea first came up back in verse 12.

12 No one has ever seen God; [but] if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is accomplished in us. 

God loves you for a purpose. He has a goal in mind, and that goal, that objective is for his love to be received in your heart in such a way that it results in you loving His people. If God is loving you and you are not loving His people then His love for you is not achieving its objective. But if it is causing you to love His people then it is achieving its objective in your life. And if that is the case, that eliminates fear of Judgment Day. It shows that you are His child – just like Jesus is His child. And if you are in the same category as Jesus in that way then you have no more damnation to fear on Judgment Day than Jesus does.

17 In this way, love achieves its goal among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 
18 There is no fear in love. But accomplished love (love that achieves its purpose in your life by causing you to love your brothers) casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not achieving the purpose of love.
You don’t feel guilty when you show love
There is no fear in love. When you are on your way to the hospital to comfort a dying friend you don’t say, “Oh, I’m going to hell for this for sure!” When your heart overflows with love toward someone because Christ loves that person, and you set aside your own freedoms and lay down your life for them, you never walk away with a guilty conscience thinking, “OK, now God’s really going to zap me for that.”
Now, hopefully you don’t say, “I’m going to heaven for this” either. You do not earn your way to heaven by being a loving person. Nobody goes to heaven because they deserve to go to heaven. But if the love of God is flowing into your heart in such a way that it achieves its purposes and causes a great affection in your heart toward His people, that should make you say, “This love did not come from my own heart. It could only come from God dwelling inside me, which means I am His child, and if I am His child then I am not condemned.”
But what about fearing God?
That is how love in your life casts out fear. If you read that passage and think, “Wait a minute – I thought we were supposed to fear God” – you need to understand, there is a good kind of fear of God and a bad kind. Love does not cast out the good kind – only the bad kind. Exodus 20:20 speaks of both kinds of fear in the same verse.

Exodus 20:18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 9 and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."

That was the bad kind of fear. It pushed them away from God and estranged them from God.

20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. (in other words, don’t have that kind of fear) God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning." (That’s the good kind of fear)
The good kind of fear of God increases your obedience and keeps you from sin, and the bad kind drives you away from intimacy with God. That is how you can tell which kind of fear you have in your heart. If your fear of God and fear of judgment makes you want to pray less, and it makes you shy away from approaching God and back away from fellowship with His people - if you have an expectation of punishment that is incompatible with intimacy; that is the kind of fear that needs to be cast out.
But if you tremble before God in worship and awe, and you take chastisement and the warnings in Scripture so seriously that it keeps you from sin, and it makes you want to avoid doing certain things and walking down certain paths because of what could happen on Judgment Day if you did; that is the good kind of fear that you should cultivate.
Casting out fear
The word translated “cast out” is a very active, vivid term. And it is the activity of a Christian. I do not think the point here is that unbelievers are afraid of Judgment Day and Christians are not. That is how it should be, but that is not how it is. Most unbelievers are oblivious to Judgment Day. Deep down there is some fear of death there, but for the most part they could not care less about God’s Judgment.
But when we as Christians disobey God and fall short of love, suddenly our confidence in our salvation becomes questionable. As God’s children we are exempted from condemnation on that day, but the more we fall into sin the more that bad kind of fear creeps back into our lives. The accuser comes and beats us over the head with our guilt, and we just want to retreat from God and His Word and His Church and everything else.
And so the Christian life becomes a process of casting that fear out. It sneaks in; you throw it out. It sneaks back in; you throw it back out. And the way you throw it out is not by clinging to some sentimental theorizing about how God is too nice to send anyone to hell. Nor is it by clinging to the memory of your conversion or trying to figure out if it was genuine or not. The way you cast out that fear is by repenting of your sin, doing everything you can to slam the door on access to that sin in the future, and turn to walk in obedience so that God’s love achieves its purpose in you.
But what if my repentance is in question?
 So you might be thinking, “Fine – I understand that if I live in love and repent of my failures to love that I can be assured that I am a child of God. But what if my repentance is in question? There are no tears where there should be total brokenness. My prayers of repentance go for all of ten seconds and then my mind is off to something else. The steps I’ve taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again have been a joke.” If that is the case, then you really do have something to worry about. Because if it is true that your repentance is not true repentance, then all bets are off. None of the comforting words of John or any other book of the Bible apply to you. Having questionable repentance is not something you want to mess with.
So if your repentance is questionable, ask yourself this – in the sin you are struggling with and that you keep on falling into over and over, is there any more drastic measure you could possibly take than what you have already done? Like, for instance – confess it to your small group so you can get their help and prayers? 
Or set up a weekly or daily accountability relationship with someone?
Or cancel your cable or Internet completely?
Or do a Bible study on that topic?
Or quit your job 
Or come to the elders of the church for help?
Or give up your hobby or whatever?
If what you have been doing is not working and you can think of something more drastic – do it! And if you are not willing to do it – you would rather just risk continuing to stumble in that sin than take drastic measures – that is not true repentance. And I guarantee you, you do not want to be holding on to unrepentant sin when Jesus returns.
In our pride we do not want to do whatever it takes to cut off access to the sin because we think, “I want to just develop strong enough character to where I can resist the temptation. If I just remove the temptation, that does not address the issue of my strength. I want to be strong enough to overcome it.
That may sound like good reasoning, but it isn’t. Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation” not “Give us the strength to resist temptation.”

Proverbs 5:8 Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house.

Learn from Cain – and Judas. When God offers you a way out of your sin – take it! Do not pass it up, or He may allow you to be overtaken by a far worse sin. When Jesus said if your eye causes you to sin gouge it out, and when your hand causes you to sin, cut it off - the point He was making is that we need to not only take drastic measures, but we need to take measures that are so drastic that they seem far more drastic than what is necessary or reasonable. 

Why are love for God and love for brother inseparable? 
So, you know you have intimacy with God when you love your brother, and you repent of failures to love. If there is one thing John has made crystal clear in this book it is that love for God and love for your brother are absolutely inseparable. 

20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. 
Empty claims
That is the seventh time in this book that John has said, “If anyone says…”. It is very important to John and to the Holy Spirit that we understand that religious claims, in themselves, mean nothing. That is especially important in our day because there are literally millions of people around the world who think they are Christians simply because they claim to be Christians. Claiming to be something makes you that thing when it comes to matters of affiliation, but not matters of nature. If you register as a Republican that act makes you a Republican – that is your affiliation.
But if you claim to be one of the nine planets in our solar system, or a bicycle or a dog – that claim does not make it so. Even if you go and register with the city as a German Shepherd, still that does not make you a dog if you were not born a dog. Christianity is a matter of nature, not just affiliation. If you are not actually born of God by the Holy Spirit, then claiming to be a Christian does not make you anything – except a liar.
So, if the claim by itself is not enough, what is the proof of true salvation? It is God’s love accomplishing its purpose in your heart by causing you to respond to His love by loving the brothers. And if that is not happening then even if the person swears up and down that he loves God, he is a liar. (And for John there are only two possibilities – love or hate. Nothing in the middle. Any failure to love is the equivalent of hatred according to John.)
The idea that you can love God and not His people is common
So John wants us to understand that love for God and love for His people are inseparable - which is a news flash for a lot of folks. I talk to people all the time who claim their relationship with God is going just fine, but they have dropped out of church or out of their small group because they cannot get along with people. They are tired of getting hurt, tired of relational conflicts, tired of being let down or disappointed or offended or hurt or mistreated, and so they just throw up their hands and say – “I can’t take it anymore” and they drop out. They do not want any organized religion.
[Of all the excuses for not coming to church I think that has to be the most ridiculous – being against organized religion. They don’t mind organized golf – start on the first hole, wait your turn, always play the same direction, follow all the exact same rules every time. They don’t mind an organized library or an organized Christmas party. Organized movie theaters are OK – movies start at certain set times, and everyone sits facing the screen. Organized television, organized neighborhoods, organized sports – all of that is fine. But I can’t come to church – it’s too organized.]
The truth is those people stay away not because of the organization, but because of the people. They want to worship God in private – just them and God. They listen to preaching on TV or the radio, and sing along with a professional choir on a CD, and they have all the spiritual food they need. And if you ask them about fellowship, they say, “Oh, I get plenty of fellowship.” They bump into fellow Christians at the grocery store, and once in a while have some friends over for dinner, and they talk on the phone with their friends, and that is all the fellowship they need. They do not mind a little relational interaction here and there as long as it is on their terms on their timetable in a safe context, and it is not too demanding, and there is no big risk of getting hurt or offended.
And if you say to them, “What about ministry? What about dispensing God’s grace to the Church through your spiritual gifts? What about all the “one another” commands in Scripture? What about not forsaking the assembly?” They will answer – “I’m not willing to do all that because people are just too hard to love.” God is easy to love. He never sins against you, never lies to you, never lets you down, is never unfaithful, always loves you perfectly, never makes a mistake. Nothing about Him is ugly. He is perfect in beauty and in everything else. God I can love – but sinful, weak, disappointing, unreliable, offensive, immature, selfish, dishonest, needy people? That is too hard. Exposing my heart, making myself vulnerable, working to build friendships and relationships – it is too much work. And it is too risky. I have done it in the past and time after time I have gotten hurt. So just let me love God in private from an isolated pew in the corner, or from the comfort of my living room, but do not ask me to lay down my life to love others.”
John says, “You’re a liar.” John is not into subtleties. He doesn’t say, “Well, I understand that you love God, but could I suggest the possibility that perhaps there might be one weak area in your love for God?” He just says, “You claim to love God? You’re a liar.” Love for God and love for His people are inseparable.
But why? Why is it so impossible to love God and not love His people?” John gives us four reasons.
Because the source of love for God also produces love for brothers
But before John can give us reason #1 he needs to explain to us how love works.

19 We love because he first loved us. 

The source of all our love is God. The only way you can love God or people is if He first loves you. Your heart is like a garden hose, and the water is love. By itself the hose cannot do anything. If it is not hooked up to the spigot, there is no water at all. So the point of verse 19 is simply that in order for any water to come out of the hose, the hose has to be hooked up to the spigot.

19 We love because he first loved us. 

All our love comes from God.

20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar.

God designed us so at the end of the hose is a splitter, so every time you turn it on it sprays in two directions. One part sprays up and the other sprays straight out. If anyone claims to have water shooting straight up toward God, but there is no water shooting out toward people, that person is a liar, because if the hose is hooked up water will spray out both ways. And if it is not shooting out one way, you know for sure it is not shooting out the other way.
And that is good to know because the part of the hose that is aimed upward is hidden from our view. But the part that shoots out toward people – that part we can see. So if nothing is shooting outward then you know nothing is shooting upward.
So why can you not love God without loving His Church? Because of the way love works. Love does not originate in your heart. It originates in heaven, flows down to you, and, if it penetrates to your heart, produces a certain effect. And that effect is love flowing out of your heart in two directions – up and out. And so if there is nothing going out toward people then there is nothing going up toward God. The reason you cannot love God if you do not love His people is because if you do not love His people that proves there is no love in your heart. There is no water flowing through the hose at all. You cannot love God, because there is nothing there to love Him with.
Because the only valid expression of love to God is love to His people

Reason #2 why you cannot love God without also loving His people:

20 …For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

What is John saying there? I have always taken that to mean it is easier to love people than to love God – because it is hard to love someone who is invisible. If you cannot do the easier thing of loving people, then you really will not be able to do the much harder thing of loving God. That seems to be John’s logic. Otherwise, why mention the seeing and not seeing? Why didn’t John just say, “Anyone who does not love his brother cannot love God?” Why bring up the fact that you can see your neighbor and you cannot see God?
But there are some problems with that interpretation. It seems to me the fact that I can see my brother – that person in the church that I have such a hard time loving – the fact that I can see him is the whole problem! It would be a whole lot easier to love him if he would just disappear! The fact that I can see him makes it so I can see his faults, I can see what is ugly about him, what is sinful about him, what is unlovely about him. And all that makes him harder to love. So what is it that John is getting at here with the seeing and not seeing?
As I wrestled with that this week, it occurred to me that this is not the first time John has talked about God’s invisibility. He mentioned that back in verse 12 – remember?

12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love achieves its goal in us.

When we studied that verse we found that John was acknowledging the fact God is invisible, but then he went on to contradict the Gnostic idea that God is therefore unknowable. Yes, God is invisible. It is true that He cannot be seen, however that is not to say that God is unknowable. That is not to say that you can have no personal, love relationship with God. You can!
But how? If you cannot know God in the normal way that you know a human being that you can see and hear and touch, then how can you carry on a relationship with Him? John’s answer is in verse 12.
 
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love achieves its goal in us.

What is the substitute for seeing God? - Having His love flow through you to others, so that His purposes in loving you are realized by you loving your brother. When that happens, God remains in you and you in Him. That is how you carry on a personal relationship with an invisible God. He loves you; He loves you with a purpose in mind; and you receive that love and it has an effect in your heart that causes you to love your brother. That is what it means to be in a love relationship with the invisible God, whom you have not seen. Loving your brother is the substitute for seeing and feeling and hearing and touching God. You cannot see Him, but in place of seeing Him you love your brother.
Now with that in mind, let’s look at verse 20 again. If you do not love your brother, obviously you are not in a love relationship with the invisible God, because being in a love relationship with the invisible God causes you to love your brother. That is why John says if you do not love your brother you cannot love God, who is unseen. If you say, “I do not love God by loving His people – I love Him in some other way,” John will answer, “No, there is no other way to love the invisible God.”
Love is a feeling that compels action. If you claim to love your wife but there are absolutely no actions that express that love, then your love is imagined and not real. Love drives you to act. Love demands to be expressed. Love is a feeling (it involves desire and delight), but it is not just a feeling. Love is something that rises from your entire being. If you force the actions without any feeling there in your heart, that is not love. But nor is it love if you claim to have the feeling, but there is no action. Love is a feeling that compels action.
So when you love an invisible God, what is the action? My love for my wife compels me and drives me to give her hugs and kisses and to serve her and provide for her and protect her and show compassion and all kinds of other things. What does my love for God compel me to do? I cannot see Him. I cannot touch him. I cannot give Him anything – if I take some money and throw it up toward heaven it does not make it. It just falls back down on my face. If I put a gift for him on a rocket ship it will be lucky if it makes it as far as the moon, but it will never reach heaven. So I cannot really give Him anything.
Can I help Him? No. Can I protect Him? No. Can I hug Him? No. Can I teach Him something? No. Can I feed Him, clothe Him, show compassion toward Him, have mercy on Him, forgive Him? No. If I have true love for the Lord Jesus Christ in my heart it will compel me to express that love in my actions, and the only object that can receive the physical expressions of my physical body is His Body – the Church. And so if I do not love His body I do not love Him.
You cannot love the invisible part of a person while hating the part you can see. What would you think of your husband if he beat you up and then claimed there was nothing wrong with his love for you? He says, “Look honey, it was just your body that I punched and kicked – but what I love is your soul. I don’t love your body, just your soul. The part of you I can see and touch - I hate. But what I don’t see, that’s the part I love.” Would you say, “Well, at least you are half way there”? No, you would say, “There is no love in your heart for me at all.”
Love is a feeling that compels action, and demands to be expressed in actions, and the invisible, transcendent God cannot be served with human hands as if He needed anything, and so the only way to express the actions of love is to His body - His people.
And if someone says, “But wait a minute – I express love for God with my mouth. I am not really involved in any ministry to His people, but I worship Him and praise Him and pray to Him and sing to Him with my mouth.” What does John say about love that comes out of your mouth but does not find its way into your actions? If anyone claims to love God while failing to love his neighbor whom he can see – that person is a liar. If it comes out of your mouth but not your actions, it is not love, it is a lie.
Because the greatest and second commands are one command. 
So the first reason why love for God and love for His people cannot be separated is because of the way love works. It comes from God and shoots out through you upward and outward. And so where there is nothing shooting outward there is nothing going upward. And the second reason why love for God and love for people cannot be separated is because God is invisible and transcendent, and so the only way love for Him can be expressed in your actions is by loving people. And then in verse 21 John gives us a third reason.

21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

John states the great commandment here in a unique way. It is not “Love God and love your neighbor,” but “Whoever loves God must love his neighbor.” Saying it that way binds the two together. The point is that the greatest commandment and the second commandment are not two commandments. They are two sides of the same coin. When the man asked Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus gave him #1 and #2. Why? They guy did not ask for #2, just #1. Jesus gave him 1 and 2 because they go together, and they can never be split apart. And they have to be mentioned together, because the human heart and false religion are constantly trying to pry them apart. We want to think we can have one without the other. But if you have one without the other then you do not have the one – you have nothing. 
When John speaks of “His command” here, most likely he is talking about the new commandment that Jesus gave in the Gospel of John.

John 13:34 A new command I give you: Love one another.

The command to love your neighbor was an old command, but the command to love one another – followers of Christ – that was new. Jesus commanded us to have a special love for His followers, and to love them because He loved them and to love them in the way He loved them. That is what completely sets our love apart from the world’s natural love. People in the world have some love. But they do not have special love for the followers of Christ because they are followers of Christ. And they certainly do not follow Jesus’ example of love – laying down your life in order to bring more abundant spiritual life in Christ to others.
That was Jesus’ command. And He said, “If you love me you will do what I command.” And so again, if we claim to love Him and do not obey His command to love His people with His love because they are His people, then we are liars.
Because you cannot love the Father without loving the child (5:1)
So you cannot separate love for God and love for people because
•	Where there is no love for people there is no love at all
•	The only way to express the actions of love for God is to people
•	Jesus commanded us to love His people and said if we love Him we will obey that command
•	And one more…

5:1 Every one who believes that Jesus is the Christ is a child of God, and every one who loves the parent loves the child. 

If you love someone you will love the people who are most beloved to them. If someone in your family or some dear friend has a baby, you have a special love for that child – more so than some random child you happen to see in the grocery store or something. Love is like that – it spills out all over everyone nearby. If you are into sports, you might find yourself rooting for a certain team just because someone you love is from that city. Tracy roots for the Denver Nuggets for one reason and one reason only – because she loves…me! If Tracy didn’t love me as much as she does she would not care if the Nuggets lost every game by 100 points. When you really love someone your heart opens up toward what they love and who they love.
And that is especially true when their father is also your father. We are siblings. One of the evidences of genuine faith in your heart is when you feel an affinity toward brothers and sisters in Christ with whom you have nothing in common outside of your love for the Lord. There might be two sisters who are completely different in just about every way, and yet they are best friends just because they are sisters. If they were not related to each other they probably never would have been friends at all. That is the way it is in God’s family as well. If you only have love in your heart toward those to whom you would naturally be attracted in the world, you have reason to question your faith. But if you find love in your heart for certain Christians just because they are Christians that is evidence that you are related as siblings.
And the converse of that is true as well – there is a certain distance between you and unbelievers. You might have some level of friendship with them, and you show kindness to them, but they will never be like the family of God is to you.

Family Resemblance
When your friends’ kids get older you love them even more, because as their personalities develop they start to develop the same characteristics that you so love. Think of everything John has said so far in this book about children of God. 
Those who are born of God are purified from all sin (1:7).
Instead of lying about their sins they confess their sins and are purified from all unrighteousness (1:9).
They do not continue in unrepentant sin (3:6, 9).
They keep His Word (love it, guard it, and obey it) (2:5) and do what is righteous just as He is righteous (2:29, 3:7, 9). 
They walk as Jesus walked (2:6).
They love the brothers and live in the light (2:10, 3:10, 14).
They are generous (3:17).
They know the Father (2:13).
They have overcome the evil one (2:13, 14) and the world (4:4).
They do the will of God (2:17).
They know the truth (2:20), the anointing remains in them (2:27), and they listen to the Word of God (4:6).
They wholeheartedly and genuinely confess Christ (2:23) and believe the truth about Him and entrust their lives to Him (3:23).
They remain faithful to the gospel, and they remain in the Father and the Father remains in them (2:24) and His love accomplishes its purpose in them (4:12).
They are purifying themselves through the hope of seeing Christ as He is (3:3).
They have the Holy Spirit (3:24).
How could you love God and not love people like that?
We say it is easier to love God than people because God is perfectly good, but the truth is, our sinful hearts do not love what is good like they should. Our hearts should be thrilled beyond words at the goodness of God, but so often we are indifferent toward it. We read a Psalm that celebrates 15 different attributes of God, putting His goodness on display in marvelous fashion, and we are bored by it. So we probably tend to give ourselves a little more credit than we deserve when we think God is easy to love because He is so good. If we really took delight in the goodness of God as we should then we would have greater love for those who have traces of His attributes in their character – which ALL Christians do.
And you might be thinking, “The people I have a hard time loving – it is not their resemblance to God’s character that bothers me; it is the areas where they fall short of that. It is the areas where they do not resemble Jesus Christ that bother me, and that make them hard to love.” We certainly should not love the sin in people, right? It would be a bad thing if you were attracted to what is sinful in them. So how do you love sinful people? How do you love people whose actions are not as righteous as they should be?
How does God do it? He has higher standards for righteous behavior than you, right? So how does a holy God who can tolerate no evil manage to take delight in His children who sin every day? We get the answer to that question in the very first book of the Bible.

Genesis 15:6 Abram believed in Yahweh, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

When a person has true, saving faith – they believe God’s Word, and they trust Him so much they are willing to entrust their lives to Him and follow Him without reservation, when God sees that kind of faith in your heart He credits it to your account is if it were righteousness - perfectly righteous behavior. Because of the price Jesus paid for our sins, and because of His perfect righteousness, God is able to look at a person who sins and then repents and put him in the category of someone who does not sin. He can do that because Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to satisfy Him. So the question is, is it enough to satisfy you? This person you cannot seem to love – are their sins so great that not even the death of Jesus in their place is enough to satisfy you? 
In our flesh we want to overlook their righteousness and focus on their sin. But if we love God we will overlook their sin and focus on their righteousness. And when their sin cannot be overlooked because there is no repentance, we confront them with church discipline. We reprove them with the goal of bringing about repentance so we can love them with unhindered love.
Let’s learn to take delight in the righteousness we see around us. Set aside the things your husband or wife does that irritate you for a moment, and consider their righteousness (if your spouse is a believer). That person in the church you struggle to love, give some careful, prolonged consideration to the righteousness that is in their lives, and think about where that came from. Spend more time thinking about the delight God takes in that person, and on the price Jesus paid to cover his or her sins. Think about how much your Father in heaven desires that person to be loved by you. Consider how closely your love for God is connected to your love for that person. And contemplate more deeply the way in which God loves you so that His love will achieve its goal in your heart through love for others. And then you will know that God is remaining in you and you are remaining in Him in close, sweet fellowship.

Benediction: Acts 20:32 Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Victory by Faith: Part 1 Delightful Obedience by Faith 5:2-4

Summary: The proof that you love people is love for God, which includes obedience to Him (obedience to God is always the most loving thing for people). All the other commands of God teach us what love means. And for the believer obedience is not only possible, but it is not burdensome (contra Bob George and “The Shack”). It is easy because faith changes our desires. The opposite of works is not effortlessness, but faith. Faith makes you a new creation (new nature) and helps gives victory in the Christian life through believing God’s statement that He is more satisfying than the world. Increase faith by looking into the evidence, subjecting yourself to Scripture with an open heart, and being willing to give up the world.

Introduction
Obedience is proof of brother love
You can’t love people without loving God
Because love for God involves keeping His commands
Obedience to God is the most loving thing
Why we have all the rest of the commands
Obedience is not burdensome
The error of considering the law burdensome (or impossible)
Obedience is good
Obedience is possible
True for all believers in some degree
The delightfulness of God’s Law
Must strive to make it more true
What makes a command hard or easy?
Change your desires
Obedience is by faith
The opposite of works is faith, not inactivity or disobedience
How that faith gives us victory
The definition of victory
Faith makes you a new creation (Regeneration)
Faith gives victory in the Christian walk (sanctification)
Conclusion: How to obtain faith
Evidence
Scripture
Willingness to give up the world

1 John 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands, 3 for this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 

Introduction 
God’s most basic command is that we believe. John introduced that in chapter 3.

1 John 3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son

Then in chapter 4 he talked about what to believe. We should not believe every spirit, but test the spirits according to the gospel. And now here in chapter 5 he is going to show us the role faith plays in the warfare we are involved in. Three times in verses 4-5 he speaks of overcoming the world by faith. That is that language of warfare. How do we defeat our enemy by faith?
In practical terms, if the sin you struggle with is that you tend to get irritable with your family or easily offended, how do you overcome that by faith? If you struggle with covetousness or lust, how do you conquer that sin by faith? How does faith help you with selfishness or laziness or lack of love?
This is not the first time we’ve encountered this word “overcome.” John really likes that word. He uses it seven times in this little book and another 25 times in his other books.
It is the word nikao, and it wasn’t just John who liked it. The ancient people liked that word too – they used it all the time. And we still like it today. That Greek word has found its way into English in the word “Nike.” It has the idea of not only overcoming, but of being invincible. You put on Nike shoes and you can’t lose. You fire a Nike missile and your enemy is toast. 
And that is pretty much the same meaning it had back in John’s day. And the word was used a lot, but not to refer to people. It was mostly reserved for the gods. The gods were invincible and unconquerable. So John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, takes this word that applies to the unconquerable, invincibility of the gods, and uses it over and over and over to refer to Christians. 

2:13 you have overcome the evil one.

2:14 you have overcome the evil one.

4:4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

5:4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

We overcome, defeat, gain victory over the world and the devil who controls the world.
First, if we are such overcomers, how do you explain all our constant failures and the devil’s constant victories? And second, what does it look like in practical terms to experience victory over a sin by means of faith? When I struggle with sin am I supposed to just close my eyes and click my heels together and try to talk myself into believing more? And if not, what exactly does it look like to defeat sin through faith?

Obedience is proof of brother love 
John is going to answer that in three steps. He starts by drawing the connection between faith and love.

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 

If you believe then you are a child of God, which means you will love God and God’s other children. That much John has made abundantly clear already in the book. But in verse 2 he introduces something completely new.
You can’t love people without loving God
2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 

That is a curve ball. We are so used to him saying, “This is how you know you love God – by loving people.” But here instead of saying, “This is the proof that you love God” he says, “This is the proof that you love people.” And at first glance it even sounds like circular reasoning. How do you know you love God? By loving people. And how do you know you love people? By loving God.
And if that is all he were saying, it would be circular. But that is not all he says. His point is to show us where obedience fits in. First he connects the dots between loving people and loving God, and then between loving God and obedience to God’s commands.
John has been making the point that you cannot separate love for God and love for people. You cannot rip those two apart. And there are two different ways people try to rip them apart. The first way is to focus on love for God without loving people. And John dealt with that last week at the end of chapter 4. The other way people rip them apart is by focusing on love for people without loving God. The first group wants to go off by themselves and just carry on a relationship with God without having to go through the trouble and headache of dealing with people, to them John says, “It’s impossible. You can’t love God without loving His people.” The second group, the people he is addressing here – just want to focus on loving people. This is the guy who is a “people person.” He is an extrovert, and he loves being around people. So he reads all that John has been saying about love for people being proof that you love God , and he starts to think that he is doing all he needs to do just by virtue of the fact that he enjoys people.
And to that person John says, “No – enjoying people and social interaction is not automatically an expression of love for God.” It is possible to be a big time people person and not love God at all. It is possible to be a humanitarian and to devote your life to relieving people’s suffering and giving to the poor and always interacting with people, and still not be loving God at all. Altruism is not necessarily love for God. Neither is enjoyment of social interaction.
Because love for God involves keeping His commands
And John explains why that is in verse 3. The first word in verse 3 in the Greek is “for.” Verse 3 is an explanation of verse 2.

2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands, 3 for, this is love for God: to keep his commands. 

The reason obedience to God is proof that you love people is because love for God (the prerequisite for loving people) is expressed in obedience.

Obedience to God is the most loving thing 
Your involvement with people is meaningless if it does not arise out of love for God. And you can tell you love God when you obey God. The most loving thing you can do for a person is to follow the law of God. Breaking the law of God is always unloving. If you ever think, “Well, the Bible says not to do this, but I am going to go ahead and do it out of love for this person” – you are deceived. There is never a situation in which that is possible. It is always, always unloving to break any law of God. Do not ever try to justify sin by saying you are doing it out of love. There is no such thing as sin done out of love, because true love for people can only come out of your love for God, and love for God is expressed in obedience to God.

Why we have all the rest of the commands
Have you ever wondered why we have other laws besides the law of love? If the entire law is summed up in “love God and love one another” then why didn’t God just give us that command and leave it at that? Why all the thousands of other commands in Scripture?

Romans 13:8-10 he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

So if that is the case, why do we have the laws about stealing and coveting and all the rest? The reason is, if all the Bible said were, “Love God and one another,” we would not have any idea what that means. We naturally think all kinds of things are loving that are not loving. And we think other things are not loving but the Bible says they really are. So God had to give us 66 books in the Bible teaching us what love is and isn’t and correcting all our twisted ideas about love.
Someone says, “The reason I am telling this lie is out of love.” The Bible says: “Wrong – Love rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor.13:6). 
“The reason I am cheating on my taxes is out of love for my family.”
Wrong – If God commands that we submit to authority and you rebel against authority instead, you are not loving God. And if you are not loving God you are not loving anyone. 
“The reason I am committing adultery with this person is because I love her.”
Wrong – Love sets aside your desires and impulses and lays down your life in order to bring the one you love to more abundant life in Christ. Dragging that person into defiling sin is the opposite of love.
Or how about this one: “The basis for loving others is first learning to love myself.” Wrong – The Bible says there will be terrible times in the last days because people will be lovers of themselves. Self-love is the biggest hindrance to true love that there is. You see, if God just said, “OK – love” and left it at that, our twisted understanding would pervert that command to such extremes that we would be doing the opposite of love and calling it love.

Obedience is not burdensome 
And then John adds this in verse 3 – 

3 This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome
The error of considering the law burdensome (or impossible)
Following God’s law is not burdensome. Now we need to talk about that for a minute because it flies in the face of what I am sure many of you have been taught. There are many today who teach that the law is not only burdensome; it is impossible. They say God never even intended for believers to try to obey God’s Law – its only purpose is to be so difficult that we throw up our hands and give up and rely on grace. That comes from a misunderstanding of Paul’s teaching about the Law in Romans.

Romans 3:20 no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

They see that and conclude that we are not to attempt to obey God’s Law at all. One person who teaches that is Bob George. [I am not trying to be ornery, and I don’t have anything personal against him. The reason his name keeps coming up is because his theology is very close to the theology of the false teachers that John was writing against.] Bob George teaches that the only thing the Law can do in your life is bring death. 
“God did not intend for us to try to live up to the standards of the law.”
He says it is wrong to even use God’s commandments as guidelines for behavior. Any effort to obey God’s commands is an insult to grace in his system.
Another very popular teacher promoting that idea is William Young, who wrote The Shack. The Shack is supposedly a true story of an encounter Mackenzie Phillips had in which he claims to have spent a weekend with God in physical form. Toward the end of the weekend Mackenzie started wondering what it would be like when he went back home. So he says to the Trinity: “…you’ve dumped a whole lot in my lap this weekend. What do I do when I get back? What do you expect of me now?” And when he says that the Holy Spirit gets really upset. And the reason the Spirit gets so agitated is because of the implication that God would require or expect him to do something. That surprises Mackenzie, and so he asks, “Then why did you give us those commandments? If You don’t require anything of us, why give the commands? ” 
And the Spirit answered, “Actually, we wanted you to give up trying to be righteous on your own.” 
“Are you saying I don’t have to follow the rules?”
“Yes. In Jesus you are not under any law. All things are lawful…Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control.”
Then the Spirit goes on to explain that the reason we like to try to obey the law is because we want to seize control of our lives and judge others and feel superior to them. And so trying to keep God’s commandments is a terrible thing to do.
Obedience is good
Is that what Paul was saying in Romans, that God expects nothing of us and that it is actually evil to attempt to obey Him? Of course not. He started out the book by saying the whole purpose of his ministry was to call Gentiles to obedience (1:5). And he repeats that in 15:18 and 16:26.

Romans 2:13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

In chapter 6 he says that there are two kinds of people – those who are slaves to sin which leads to death, and those who are slaves to obedience which leads to righteousness (6:16). And then in the next verse he says, 

Romans 6:17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

Hebrews 5:9 [Christ is] the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him

The Law of God does have the purpose of bringing unbelievers to Christ by showing them how far short they fall of God’s standard. But that is not the only purpose of God’s law. Once you come to Christ the Law does play an important role in your sanctification. There are thousands of commands in Scripture – Old and New Testaments. And each time God gives a command there are only two possibilities – obey or disobey. If you do not obey the only other option is to disobey.
Now, if you ask these teachers if you should disobey, they will probably say no. My guess is they would say it is good for you to do what is righteous, but just not because it was commanded. So the idea is, go ahead and obey, but not with the motive of obedience. That is nonsense. Go ahead and obey God, but don’t do it out of obedience? In The Shack he explains that by saying we should favor relationship over rules, which implies that that relationship with God and obedience to God are somehow opposed to each other. They are not. Jesus said “If you love Me you will obey what I command” (Jn.14:15). Obedience is the activity of relationship – they go hand in hand.
Obedience is possible
And not only is obedience a good thing, it is also possible. Those people teach that everything God commanded is utterly impossible, and the only reason He commanded it was to teach us how impossible it is. Is that true? John says that for the child of God, obeying His commands is not impossible. In fact it is not even burdensome. Anyone who says God’s commands are impossible needs to explain Deuteronomy 30:11.

Deuteronomy 30:11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.

Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

For the believer God’s commands are not burdensome. This is another one of those principles that is true in general of believers, and yet realized in varying degrees as you progress spiritually.

True for all believers in some degree
Every true Christian has a delight in his heart at the prospect of obeying God’s commands. Where there is no love for God’s law there is no salvation. Psalm 1 – the righteous delight in the Law of the Lord and the wicked do not. Herschel Hobbs: “Christian love does not ask ‘must I’ but ‘may I’; it does not count the cost, but weighs the privilege.” Love for God does not read Scripture and constantly think, “Do I have to do this?” Rather it sees God’s will expressed in His laws and says, “Oh Lord, let that be true in my life!”
The delightfulness of God’s Law
Psalm 19:8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. 

10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb. 
Psalm 119:14 I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. 

16 I delight in your decrees

20 My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times. 

24 Your statutes are my delight

47 I delight in your commands because I love them. 

48 I lift up my hands to your commands, which I love

52 I find comfort in your ancient laws

62 At midnight I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws.

70 I delight in your law.

72 The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. 

77 your law is my delight. 

92 If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. 

97 Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. 

103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! 

111 Your statutes …are the joy of my heart. 

113 I love your law.

117 I will always have regard for your decrees. 

119 I love your statutes. 

120 I stand in awe of your laws. 

127 Because I love your commands more than gold, more than pure gold, 128 and because I consider all your precepts right, I hate every wrong path. 

129 Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them. 

131 I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. 

136 Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed. 

140 Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them. 

143 your commands are my delight. 

148 My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises. 

159 See how I love your precepts

162 I rejoice in your promise like one who finds great spoil. 163 I hate and abhor falsehood but I love your law. 

165 Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble. 

167 I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly. 

174 your law is my delight. 

Think of what an amazing thing it is that we love the law of God. Who else, besides Christians, writes joyful songs about laws? When was the last time you turned on the secular radio station and heard someone rejoicing in song over the tax code or the traffic laws? Your kids aren’t in their room singing, “Oh, how I love my curfew, yeah baby.” So why have believers through the ages, when they want to express their joy in song, write songs about God’s laws? It is because the children of God love the will of God. And the will of God is revealed in the Word of God. And so we love His Word and His way because He is so good.

Must strive to make it more true
That is true of all Christians. However while it is true of all of us in a general sense, we all need to strive to make it more true in every area of our lives. Each of us has certain points at which God’s laws seem burdensome – like we are really missing out if we follow God’s way. Isn’t that true in your life? In general you love God’s law and you very much desire holiness, but aren’t there some of God’s laws that seem more delightful than others? There are some of His commands that you do not have any desire at all to break. But aren’t there some other things that really do seem enticing? Aren’t there some of God’s laws that seem really hard to obey? Why are those commands burdensome to you? What makes a command hard or easy? 
What makes a command hard or easy?
The hardness or easiness of a command has nothing to do with how much effort it requires. If your son loves snowboarding and hates taking out the trash, and you tell him to take out the trash and then go snowboarding, the command to take out the trash will be burdensome to him and the command to go snowboarding will be delightful to him - even though taking out the trash requires only a fraction of the effort of going snowboarding. So when Jesus says “My yoke is easy” that does not mean it requires little effort – the amount of effort has nothing to do with it. What makes a command either burdensome or easy is your desires.
Change your desires 
And so the way to increase your obedience is not by merely resolving to put forth more effort. The best summary I know of for how to increase your obedience is in Psalm 119:129.

Psalm 119:129 Your statutes are wonderful; therefore I obey them. 

You will obey a command when you see that command as wonderful. Or verse 167,

167 I obey your statutes, for I love them greatly. 

You will obey a law when you love that law.
If it is a chore for you show up here, and you would not even be here if someone didn’t rouse you out of bed on Sunday morning, and your main hope is to be able to just escape the place without encountering anyone - and especially not some needy person that will demand a lot of your time and emotions; then you have allowed the love command to become burdensome. And that is not going to change until you learn to see what is wonderful about that command so that you love it.

Obedience is by faith 
So how do we achieve this victory?

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 

The victory comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The opposite of works is faith, not inactivity or disobedience 
Those people who say that it is inappropriate to put forth effort to obey God – the reason they say that is because they want to guard grace. They want to do everything possible to avoid any trace of works-righteousness, and so they say – “Don’t even try to do good works.” But that is not the way to avoid works-righteousness, nor is it the way to preserve grace. Every time you read in Scripture of the error of works-righteousness, the solution is always, always faith. The opposite of salvation by works is not being dormant. The opposite of salvation by works is salvation by faith.
The big buzz word these days is “relationship.” They say, “The issue isn’t religion, it isn’t works, it isn’t effort – it is relationship.” There is truth in that, but it is not the terminology that Scripture uses. The problem with focusing on the word “relationship” is that it is too vague. Everyone relates to God in one way or another. The devil has a relationship with God. It is a really bad relationship, but it is a relationship. Hardly anyone objects to the idea of having a relationship with God. But most people think they can have that relationship on their own terms. But God says, “No, the only terms on which you can have a favorable relationship with Me is faith in Jesus Christ.
So we are totally against the idea of salvation by works. That is heresy. But what is the opposite of salvation by works? Salvation by disobedience to God? No. Salvation by inactivity? No. Salvation by faith.
And faith is not passive or inactive. Notice the two different words John uses for how we are to obey in verses 2 and 3.

2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 This is love for God: to keep his commands. 

Carry out and keep. Keeping God’s commands means to guard them in your heart. That word points to the affections and the will – your heart attitude. The word translated “carry out” is an action word.
We obey God’s commands on the inside and on the outside – in your attitudes and in your actions – thinking, feeling, and doing; with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And you do that through faith.
How that faith gives us victory
So how does that work? How does that faith provide victory over the world and the devil?

The definition of victory 
Well, to define victory we have to define the war. What is this war being fought over? What is the enemy trying to achieve and what are we trying to achieve?

3:8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 

The Devil’s objective is to promote sin and our objective is to destroy his work. He is fighting to drag us away from God by enticing us with this world, and we are resisting that. And so when we prefer this world to God he has victory in the war and when we prefer God to this world we have victory. I have a time and energy and ability and money – how am I going to spend it? Am I going to spend it to get my hands on some of the delightful treasures this world has to offer, or am I going to spend it trying to gain greater access to grace from God because I prefer Him as a greater treasure? Which treasure has the greater tug on my heart when it comes right down to the moment of making decisions on how to spend my resources?
If the honest answer to that question in your heart is, “This world has the greater tug on my heart. I wish it were the other way, but the honest truth is that the pleasures and delights of this world are more appealing to me than the grace of God and the presence of God.” If that is the reality in your life, then the enemy is winning the war in your life. And if you say, “Well how do I change that? I know I should desire to read the Bible and go to church and pray and all that, but I don’t. And I don’t know how to reach into my heart and change the desires that are there. How do I get the upper hand in this war? How do I make it so what God offers is more appealing to me than what the world offers? What is the key to victory in that area?”

4 This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

It is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that changes your desires.
But how? How does that work? I look at the pleasures of this world – money and food and recreation and sex and everything else, I walk through the mall and see all the treasures in there, I see the really cool cars that are out there and the beautiful homes and the white sand beaches in some tropical vacation paradise, and I see the fun that worldly people are having, and all the women (or men) that are so attractive, and something deep down inside me just wants some of those things so bad, and the thought of missing out on that pleasure seems so intolerable, and the thought of having grace from God instead seems like an offer that frankly I can easily refuse. How does faith change all that?

Faith makes you a new creation (Regeneration)
It works in two ways. First, by giving you a new nature.

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God

4 everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

So by having faith in the Lord Jesus Christ you are born again – born of God – recreated into a new kind of being with a different kind of heart. The moment you become a Christian through faith, God gives you a new nature that is capable of preferring the good over the worthless. But until you have true, saving faith that is impossible for you. That is why people who think they are Christians but who are not really born again experience God’s laws as being so burdensome. 
“Just one woman (or man) for my whole life – I can never know what it would be like to sleep with someone else? That’s burdensome. I feel like I’m missing out on real happiness. ”
“Get up every Sunday morning and go sit in a pew and listen to hymns and some guy preaching at me and telling me what I have to do? That sounds like a drag. And I would miss out on sleep or skiing” (or whatever it is that is calling your name on Sunday mornings).”
God has promised that the experience of His presence and His grace will be more satisfying to your soul than any pleasure this world has to offer. But by running after one you forfeit the other. If you opt for the grace of God you will have to forfeit the pursuit of this world’s pleasures. And if you opt for this world’s pleasures you will have to forfeit the grace of God. You cannot have both. You cannot say, “OK, I will do a side-by-side taste test. I will indulge in sin all morning and then indulge in the grace of God all afternoon and see which one makes me happier.” You cannot do that because if you indulge in sin all morning you forfeit the grace from God that you could have enjoyed that afternoon.
“So then if I can’t have both – I can’t do a side-by-side taste test to see which brings me more happiness, then how do I know I will really be happier with the grace of God than with the pleasures of this world?” 
Answer – God has said that you would be happier. So the way you can know if you would be happier is to believe what God has said – that is faith. There is no trial period to test drive Christianity. I know of a church whose slogan is, “Our church is a safe place to take Christianity for a test drive.” The idea behind that was to attract unbelievers into the church. You can come in, give Jesus a try without any risk or obligation, and see if it is something you want to get into.
If that were possible then you wouldn’t really need any faith. You would not have to take God’s word for it, because you could just try it out for yourself. And that is appealing to a lot of people, but it is impossible. You cannot take Christianity out for a test drive. When people do that, what they are checking out is not really Christianity. They might be at church watching all that goes on, but what they are experiencing is not Christianity, because the only way to experience Christianity is to actually be a child of God. You cannot experience any of Christianity without being a full-blown Christian. And you cannot be a Christian if you do not trust God and believe His Word. You have to take the full plunge in faith before you can experience any of it.
But if you do trust Him and believe Him, then you believe Him when He says that He is the greatest treasure and His presence is more satisfying to your soul than anything in this world and His grace is more delightful and will make you happier than anything else.

Faith gives victory in the Christian walk (sanctification)
So that is the first way it works. But I told you it works two ways – the first way is through the transformation that takes place when you become a Christian. The second way it works is the process of trusting in Him on a daily basis after you become a Christian. Faith is not just a onetime event, like an immunization shot or something, where you believe for a moment, you get in, and then you are set forever no matter what happens in your heart after that. We are saved by faith, and that salvation has past, present, and future aspects. Most Christians understand the past aspect – I was saved on the day I first believed. And they understand the future aspect – I will be saved in the fullest sense when Christ returns. But very often we miss the present aspect – I am being saved by faith right now. Faith is not just a ticket for gaining entry into God’s family. Scripture says “The righteous will live by faith.” That statement is repeated (with some variation) a half dozen times in Scripture (Hab.2:4, Ro.1:17, 2 Cor.5:7, Gal.2:20, 3:11, Heb.10:38).
What does that mean? How do we live the Christian life by faith? Again, faith has two parts – believing and trusting. You believe the truth and trust the person.
So if there is some area where the enemy seems to be getting the better of you, examine your faith. What is it that Jesus said that your heart is not really believing? What aspect of Christ’s character are you doubting and failing to trust? Suppose your sin is getting drunk or some kind of drug habit. Ask, “Where is the breakdown in faith?” Either you are not fully convinced that it is actually sin, or you are not fully convinced that the grace you are forfeiting would be more satisfying than the feeling you get from getting drunk or high. The same goes for sexual sin, or gluttony. Your flesh tells you, “If you don’t do this you will be missing out on so much pleasure!” And as long as you believe that you are ultimately missing out by saying no to that sin, then you will find yourself falling into that sin over and over. But when you have faith – you really believe what God says, that nearness to him will bring you more happiness and satisfaction than that sin, only then will you have ongoing victory in that area.
Suppose you struggle with a temper – you have a short fuse and you are easily annoyed. Where is the breakdown in faith? Maybe your heart thinks circumstances have to go a certain way in order for you to be happy. And if they don’t go that way, you get mad. And God says, “My presence is all you need for joy and satisfaction of soul. Even in the midst of the worst imaginable circumstances, nearness to Me would make you happy.” If God says that, and you get mad when circumstances are not what you want, you do not believe God. And so you shore up your faith in that area, and the temper problem disappears. Find some of God’s great and precious promises that have to do with that, focus your attention on those, rely on them, rest in them, savor them, take delight in them. And as you come to believe what God has said more and more you will find your attraction to that sin become weaker and weaker. That is how faith brings you victory as you live the Christian life.
And again, can you see why His commands are not burdensome to us? If we lived righteous lives by gritting our teeth and forcing ourselves not to do the things we really want to do, if that were the method for overcoming sin, then it would be burdensome. That is why for unbelievers God’s law is incredibly burdensome. But for the child of God who has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, 1) he has a new nature because he is born of God through faith in Christ, and 2) he believes the promises about God’s way being far more delightful and satisfying than the world, and so it is not burdensome at all. It is no burden to do what you want. It is no burden to pursue that which you believe will bring you the most happiness. It is no burden to give up that which you really believe is worthless to gain that which you really believe is priceless. If someone required you to give them all the Monopoly money in your house in exchange for real money, that would not be burdensome. If someone commanded you to give up the chains of a prison cell for the beaches of Hawaii, that would not be burdensome. And when you have faith you can see that that is the sort of trade God is requiring, and so for you it is a delight, not a burden.

Conclusion: How to obtain faith
 “I wish I believed all that, but I don’t. How can you make yourself believe something that does not seem to be true?”
Evidence
The most obvious answer to that question is to examine the evidence. Look into it. Find out if Jesus really made that claim, and then look into how credible Jesus is. Is there really historical proof that He rose from the dead? Is what He says really credible? You need to be convinced by the evidence. 
Scripture
But that by itself is not enough. There is a spiritual dimension. When your eyes are blinded to how desirable and delightful God is, it takes more than evidence to open them. It takes a supernatural act of God. And God is willing to do that, but only through Scripture.

Romans 10:13-17 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 
 17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
If you do not believe but you are willing to believe, read Scripture and listen to the preaching of God’s Word with a willing, open heart and God will use that to generate faith in your heart.
Willingness to give up the world
So how do you produce faith in your heart? Examine the evidence, expose your heart to the truth of God’s Word with an eager, willing attitude, and one more - let go your grip on this world. Whatever rival treasure you are clinging to in your pursuit of happiness – let it go. If there is some sin in your life that you are not willing to give up, do not expect God to grant you faith. When you cling to sin you forfeit grace (Jonah 2:8).
Look into the evidence, let go of this world, and expose your heart to God’s Word. Do those three things and you will be able to believe the gospel. And as soon as you do believe, at that moment you will be born again with a new nature that is capable of having the right desires. That is victory.
What a God we serve, whose law – whose requirements, every last one of them – is a delight! How about we close with this amazing thought: Did you know that your delight in God’s law is something Jesus purchased with His own blood?

Titus 2:13-14 [our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Jesus did not just die to purchase our forgiveness. He also died to purchase our eagerness. And the eagerness comes by faith.

Benediction: Romans 16:25-27 Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him- 27 to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.

Victory by Faith: Part 2 The Water and the Blood 5:5-6a

Summary: The last passage showed the importance of faith, and this section seeks to build faith by producing evidence in the form of testimony. The object of faith is Christ as the source of life. The testimony of the water is the events surrounding Jesus’ baptism (which the false teachers probably accepted). The testimony of the blood (which they didn’t like) was the events surrounding the crucifixion/resurrection. 

Review
Intro
Testimony builds faith
The object of faith – verse 5
The meaning of water and blood
The First Witness: the Water
Association with sinners
The Second Witness: The Blood
The Lamb of God
Other signs at Jesus’ Death
The resurrection
Conclusion

1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 

Review
When you do something nice for someone, how do you know if that is really love? Sometimes when you show kindness to someone it is love; other times it is not. How do you know the difference? The answer is in 1 John 5:2 - Obedience to God. It is never love if it is disobedience to one of God’s commands. In last week’s passage John showed us the error of what I have heard called “catchword ethics.” Catchword ethics is when you take some general principle in the Bible and use it to justify an act of disobedience. In this case the catchword is love. Everyone loves the word love. And everyone wants to assign their idea of love to God, and use it to justify their ethical system.
“It’s OK for me to get a divorce, because God is loving and He does not want me to be unhappy for the rest of my life.”
“It’s OK for me to break this little biblical rule, because after all, God is a God of love.”
“We shouldn’t carry out church discipline, because that would be unloving.”
“Instead of telling people the truth about Christ and sin and judgment, I’ll just show them love.”
They take love, turn it into a catchword, and then use it to cancel out specific commands in the Bible.
Another big catchword is “grace.”
“We are under grace; therefore we do not have to obey God’s commands.”
“God would not send anyone to hell, because He is a God of grace.”
“It is OK to have foul language or to love the world a little bit here and there, because God is not concerned about law – only grace.” 
There is no general principle in the Bible that makes disobedience OK. There is nothing in the character of God that winks at any kind of disobedience. I had another person contact me just this week and try to convince me that it is wrong to try to obey God. He said I was preaching the gospel of Jesus, which is all about law, and I should stop doing that and preach the gospel of Paul, which is about grace. Please, if anyone ever comes to you with a message that says you do not need to obey God’s commands, reject that teacher and do not listen to another word. There are a lot of these people floating around, and they are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Jude 1:4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality

Where there is no obedience, faith is dead; it does not exist. Victory in our war against Satan is obedience to God. Disobedience is defeat.
And the only way to have real, sustained victory over a sin is by faith. John told us some amazing things in the last text we looked at about the importance and value of faith. It is a key passage with some crucially important principles. It is a passage that teaches us how to have victory in the Christian life. The way to have victory – the way to overcome that problem in your life that you have not been able to overcome – is by faith. It is the way to make God’s commands that are currently hard for you and burdensome, delightful and desirable. Faith makes you invincible in the war against Satan. Everything you desperately want in the Christian life you can have through faith – and only through faith. And so that should make all of us ravenously hungry for greater faith. If faith has the power to change my desires so that these longings I have for the world would fade and my desire for spiritual things would increase, anything that has the power to do that in my life – I want it!
And now that John has made us desperate to increase our faith, in this passage he is going to help us do that. He is going to help us convince our hearts to believe the truth by showing us how absolutely bombproof the evidence is. John is now going to supply us with absolute, undeniable, irrefutable proof – proof beyond any reasonable doubt that the gospel is true, so that we can increase our faith. And what is that proof? - The testimony of God.

Intro
Do you realize that God has spoken to you? Sometimes people talk about what they plan on saying to God when they arrive in heaven. They say, “If I could speak to God face to face, this is what I would say…” And frankly, I am generally not all that interested in what people think they would say to God. I am a lot more interested in what God would say to them. If you had a conversation with God, the important question is not what you would say; the important question is what would God say? What would God say? Of all the things God has in His heart to say to you, what would He say first? What is most important? If He had to keep it to one sentence, what would it be?

11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

That is another one of John’s amazing one-line summaries of the whole gospel. That is the gospel, and that is what God is testifying about. When God gives us this rock-solid proof, it is that sentence that He is proving. When you strive for greater faith, it is that sentence – or some corollary to that sentence, that you are striving to believe more.
So how is John going to build our faith? Starting in verse 6 he brings us all into a courtroom to hear some testimony. And this testimony is going to be so compelling that our hearts will be convinced, and we will have faith. Three witnesses are going to get up on the stand and testify.
Testimony builds faith
But before we hear the testimony we have to address the question of whether testimony is even the right approach. Because there are many who doubt - deny that it is. They say, “You can’t argue someone into faith. You can’t debate someone into the Kingdom. Faith is a supernatural, spiritual reality and so no amount of reasoning can take a dead heart and make it alive.”
And it is true – faith is a spiritual thing. But so is reasoning. Truth and logic are spiritual things. Is evidence, by itself, enough to generate faith in someone’s heart? No. But neither is it possible to have faith without evidence. It is not the whole pie but it is an essential ingredient. 
Can you argue someone into the kingdom? It depends. It depends on what is missing in their heart. If someone has a hard heart that is unwilling to accept the truth, or unwilling to give up the world, then no – no amount of testimony or proof will convince them. But sometimes you get a person who is willing to accept the truth, but they just have not heard the evidence. And people like that do become Christians when they are presented with good arguments for the faith.
There is currently a big movement in Christianity known as the Emergent Church. And one of the hallmarks of that movement is the idea that “propositional truth” is a thing of the past. They say, “Truth is not a set of propositions; truth is a Person.” Or, “Truth is best communicated in a story – not in propositions.” Or sometimes they say, “We can’t expect everyone to think according to Western logic. Oriental people don’t use Western logic.”
I read several articles this week arguing against propositional truth. And I was amused at the fact that every point in every one of those articles was a proposition. The entire article was nothing but propositions. The argument against propositional truth is a self-refuting argument because they have to use propositions to argue against them.
Regardless what people say are the current social trends, the fact is God uses propositions and logic, and therefore that is a good approach – period.

The object of faith – verse 5
The starting point for our faith is in verse 5, where John gives us the object of our faith. Faith in the wrong object is worthless. If I see a frozen lake and decide to walk on it, if that ice is paper-thin then I can believe with all my heart that it will hold me up, but it won’t. But if it is five feet thick then I can have all kinds of doubts in my mind and it will still hold me up. All I need is enough faith to step out on it. You see the power comes not from the faith but from the object of faith. Faith in the wrong Jesus, wrong God, wrong religion – will do nothing to save you. It will give you no victory at all. That is why it is so important to learn Scripture. If you do not know what the truth is, you cannot believe it.
Many people in our culture think of faith as an end in itself. They have “faith” with no object. They say things like, “You have to believe – you can accomplish anything if you just believe.” But they never say what it is you are supposed to believe – they just have faith in faith.
But John tells us exactly what the object of our faith must be.

5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

And the object of that faith must be Christ. And there are two parts to faith – believing the truth about Him and trusting Him as a person. And what is the truth about Him? He is the Son of God, the only way to the Father, and the only source of eternal life. If you can convince your soul of that, you are invincible in the warfare. You will be able to overcome greed, discontent, anger, unforgiveness, lying, worry, laziness, doubt, pride, gluttony, selfishness, lust, addiction – anything. We become captive to those sins because we think we can get some aspect of life from them (joy or safety or security or motivation or blessing – some aspect of abundant life). So if we really believe that Jesus Christ is the source of abundant life – the only source – then our hearts will gladly let go its grip on those things and prefer grace from God instead.

The meaning of water and blood
OK, so we know the object of our faith, now we are ready to strengthen our faith. John is going to help us be convinced. So let’s take a look at this testimony that is so compelling.

 6 This is the one who came through water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come in water only, but in water and blood. 

What does it mean that Jesus came through water and blood? And why make a point that it was not just water – it was also blood? Why does he not say, “He did not come in blood only, but also in water”? Evidently the readers did not have any trouble with the water part, but needed to be reminded about the blood part.
The words, through and in are probably being used here is a very general way to simply mean, “In connection with.” Jesus was associated with water and with blood. And if we want to know what John means by “in water,” if you look up that Greek phrase you find that it occurs ten other times – mostly in John’s Gospel and every time it always refers to the same thing – John’s baptism. The word can mean with, and you see that repeatedly in the Gospel of John. John came baptizing with water.
So that is where the phrase itself takes us, and so the first place to look is at Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. Could that be what John is referring to here? I think the answer is yes. If we take the water to refer to Jesus’ baptism and the blood to refer to His death, then you have the beginning and end of Jesus earthly ministry. It started with His baptism and went to His death. And it is hard to think of what else it could possibly refer to. Some have pointed to the water and blood that flowed from Jesus’ side, but it is hard to imagine how that would be proof of anything (other than the fact that Jesus’ had died), and 2) in what sense did Jesus come through that water and blood?
Others have said the water is believers’ baptism and blood refers to communion, but nowhere is communion referred to by blood alone, and there is nothing in the context that would call for a reference to communion. So the best explanation is probably that the water refers to Jesus’ baptism and the blood to His death.
And that would also explain why John says, “Not just the water, but also the blood.” One thing we know about the heresy that was taught in the church John is writing to is that they believed the Christ spirit came upon Jesus at His baptism and left prior to His death. They could not imagine that the Christ could actually die, so they separated Jesus the man and Christ the spirit. And they said the two were joined from the baptism up to just before the crucifixion. They did not have any problem believing that Jesus was the Christ at the baptism – just not on the cross.
In fact, it may well have been that those teachers used the term “in water” or “through water” to refer to Jesus’ baptism. So John takes their term and says – “That’s true, but not just in water – also in blood.” John throws a harsh word in alongside their word to get their attention.
The First Witness: the Water
OK, so let’s take a look at how the water and blood testify about Jesus. Here we are in the courtroom, and you are the judge – evaluating whether the testimony is valid. Satan, the accuser who always attacks your faith, is there trying to persuade you that it is not valid. In verse 6 John calls his first witness to the stand – the water. What happened at Jesus’ baptism? The baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ was one of the most astonishing and spectacular events that has ever occurred in human history.

Matthew 3:13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

That phrase “tried to deter” is in the imperfect, which means John kept deterring Him, which means Jesus kept persisting as well. Jesus kept on saying, “Baptize Me,” and John kept resisting. There were huge crowds there, and so it must have been quite a drama when John’s cousin shows up to be baptized, and it turns into an argument. 
Why did John argue about this? Why is he so reluctant – what is the problem? He was reluctant because he knew the meaning of his baptism. What was John’s baptism? It was not the same as baptism today. When we get baptized it is a symbol of dying and rising with Christ, and being immersed into His Church. But none of that was in place yet before Jesus even started His public ministry. So what was John’s baptism all about?

Mark 1:4 And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Luke 3:3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Acts 19:4 Paul said, "John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. 

Being baptized by John meant repenting of your sins. That is clear even from the context of Matthew 3. Look up at verse 1.

Matthew 3:1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the Desert of Judea 2 and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." 

6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 

11 I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 

When you come to John to be baptized, you get down there in the water with him, confess your sins, repent of them, and then he dunks you down into the water as a statement of your repentance. So can you see why John is choking on this idea of baptizing Jesus?
John’s whole life is devoted to convincing everyone that Jesus is the spotless, sinless, perfect Lamb of God. Baptizing Him with a baptism of repentance would ruin everything. If Jesus participates in a ritual connected with repentance, it will appear as though He is a common sinner just like everyone else.

Matthew 3:15 Jesus replied, "Let it be so now;

This is an idiom. The meaning is something like, “What you are saying is true, but let it slide this time.” Jesus acknowledged the validity of John’s argument – what John was saying was right on, but Jesus wanted to do it anyway, and the reason why lies behind that word “now.” It was important that Jesus be baptized at this moment, because something about this moment is very significant.
And then Jesus says something to John that puts an immediate end to this little disagreement.

15 …it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness." Then John consented.

Jesus says that it is necessary for him and John to do this so that everything that is supposed to take place in Jesus’ Messianic work will be fulfilled.
What was it that was so important to Jesus’ work as Messiah? 

16 As soon as Jesus was baptized…
Wait a minute – now it’s over! In verse 15 he was discussing with John about it, and now in verse 16 it is already in the past. We missed it! In verse 15 He is debating with John, and in verse 16 He is soaking wet. In my Bible this section is titled, “The baptism of Jesus,” but the baptism of Jesus is not even described! 
What that tells us is the reason why this was so important had to do with what happened right after the baptism. 

16 he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

Imagine what that was like. Let’s transport ourselves down to the Jordan and get a good spot on the bank so we can watch this. There you are, standing along the bank with the crowd. You just stepped out of the water. A little chill runs through you as you feel a little breeze. You are soaking wet, but you aren’t going anywhere - you wouldn’t miss this for the world. It seems all of Israel is coming. People are repenting of their sins and turning to God. You cannot believe that you were just baptized by John the Baptist himself!
Now a man comes that John knows. They are out there talking, and it is hard to hear over the sound of the river, but it looks like John is refusing to baptize him!
And yet this man seems totally unintimidated by this great prophet. In fact it looks like if anything the prophet is a bit intimidated by this man. Who is he? He can’t be anyone very important - he came down the road from Galilee.
Oh, look! Now John is baptizing him. Jesus goes into the water, he goes under, John brings Him up…

17 At that moment heaven was opened

You look up, the clouds roll back, blue goes to the side, the blackness of outer space cracks open, and suddenly you find yourself one of the very few human beings who have ever gazed directly into heaven itself! The first thing you notice is the brilliant bright light. Heaven is always described the same way – brilliant, flashing spectacular jewels and precious stones – the light of the glory of God refracting through them with infinite beauty and colors beyond description. There is God’s awesome throne surrounded by four huge living creatures, 24 rulers on thrones, and countless millions of angels…
You are standing there, and you cannot believe your eyes. You wonder if it is just a vision, but you look around, and everyone sees it! And that is not all. Next something even more astounding happened – something that had never happened before and has never happened since.

17 and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him.

The Holy Spirit was actually incarnated. He took on some kind of body (Lk.3:22). We do not know what kind of body – perhaps like a bird’s body, but it descended right out of heaven like a dove would descend. Almighty God, the Holy Spirit, actually descended from heaven and landed on Jesus.
That was a pre-arranged sign. 

John.1:33 I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, `The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 

Why a dove? A dove would remind those people of sacrifice. The poor were to sacrifice a spotless dove. It was a picture of purity and sinless perfection. The Holy Spirit of God is making a dramatic statement that Jesus is no sinner. He has NO blemish, NO spot, NO sin, NO guilt.
So you are standing there in awe and fear taking all this in. You see things that the Bible writers are at a loss to describe when they have seen glimpses of it in visions. Suddenly the Holy Spirit takes a bodily form and flies right down out of heaven, right into the earth’s atmosphere, and lands on that Man!
Unbelievable! And just when you think you are about to pass out from amazement, that is still not all! At that moment your senses are shattered by the most awesome voice your have ever heard. 

17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased."

God Almighty speaks audibly from heaven! What was that voice like? Was it like being next to a loud speaker when you can feel the vibrations in your chest? 
God the Father speaks and says, “In case you were wondering who this man is, He is My Son.” Some people have tried to make that mean Jesus is something less than God the Father. That is not what that term means. It means Jesus is essentially the same as God. Just like my children are made up of nothing but a piece of me and a piece of Tracy, so they are 100% human, so Jesus was 100% God. What is Jesus made out of - Deity. Jesus consists of the same stuff as the Father. Son of God means he is by nature God. That is not true of any other human being. We are God’s sons and daughters in a different sense. But the phrase THE Son of God means deity. That is why they tried to stone Jesus when He claimed to be the Son of God.
But God is not done.

This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well-pleased

“In case anyone is still confused – Jesus is not a common sinner. He is not any kind of sinner. He has not done anything wrong. I am nothing but pleased with Him.”
Abraham was a great man, but this did not happen to him. God never spoke from heaven and said this about Moses, or David, or Elijah. Only Jesus.
Finally the whole, amazing drama draws to a close. The voice stops, the heavens return to normal, the Holy Spirit is still remaining on Jesus though. And John the Baptist looks at Jesus and says, “On second thought, I guess the concern about You looking like a common sinner is a non-problem.” Thousands were being baptized, but this didn’t happen for any of them. They go under the water and nothing happens but a few ripples. Jesus goes under and all heaven breaks loose. Heaven opens, God the Spirit appears, and the Father speaks audibly from heaven!
Just as an aside – there is a good lesson in that for us. Do not ever disobey because you are afraid of how it will look! Sometimes we don’t want to obey God because we are afraid it will make God look bad because of some special circumstances. Do not ever worry about that – God can take care of how things look to people. We just need to obey.
Association with sinners
So the problem of Jesus looking like a sinner turned out to be a non-problem. But the question still remains - why this act associated with repentance? God could have spoken from heaven without Jesus participating in an act that would associate Him with sinners. So why the baptism?

Isaiah 3:6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 

12 he was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many

Every one of us is morally corrupted on the inside. The reason Jesus came to this earth was to live a perfect life and then bear the guilt of our corruption in our place – and then take the punishment we deserve so that we could be granted forgiveness – if we entrust our lives to Him.

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness

Jesus came to identify with sinners. In fact, Jesus’ baptism was actually a picture of his own death. Every time Jesus refers to his own personal baptism, He speaks of His death. When some disciples asked to sit on the right and left of Jesus in the Kingdom Jesus said,

Mark 10:38 "You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"

Luke 12:50 I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!

Jesus’ baptism in water by John was the symbol and picture of His identification with sinners, and His death on the cross was the reality of His identification with sinners.
Turn in your Bibles back to 1 John 5, as we leave the banks of the Jordan and come back into John’s courtroom. That was the testimony of the water. John says to the Judge, “I’m finished with this witness Your Honor.” And the Judge looks at Satan and says, “Do you have any questions for this witness?” And Satan says, “No! Just get him off the stand already!” And he is grumbling as he walks back to his seat – “That wasn’t fair. John called “the water” to the stand but that testimony was actually the testimony of God Himself! I never had a chance against that Witness.” But his grumbling is interrupted by your voice from the bench: “Next witness!” And John says, “I now call the blood to the stand.”

The Second Witness: The Blood
And at that point about ten different voices in the courtroom shout, “Objection!” There was applause and approval and a lot of “oohs” and “aahs” for the water’s testimony. But that same crowd does not want to hear anything from this next witness.
The baptism of Jesus was an amazing event. That is the kind of testimony we naturally like. Sometimes you hear people say, “Why didn’t God make it clearer? Why not just speak audibly from heaven or something?” Well, He did! The kind of testimony God gave at the baptism of Jesus is right up our alley. That is usually the kind of evidence we are looking for when we ask the question of whether someone is from God. So the pre-Gnostic false teachers of John’s day would have had no problem at all with that first witness.
But this next witness causes most of the people in the courtroom to turn their heads away in disgust. This witness is hideous and embarrassing. Some of you might remember the Re-Imagining Conference that took place in Minneapolis back in 1993. It was put on by several of the mainline Christian denominations, and the purpose was to re-imagine what Christianity would look like from a feminist perspective and one of the most prominent themes in that conference was how horrible the doctrine of the cross was. One of the main speakers was Virginia Mollenkott of the National Council of Churches. She said that the cross was "the ultimate in child abuse and a model of human child abuse" depicting "God as an abusive parent." Another speaker, Dolores Williams, professor at Union Theological Seminary said, "I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses dripping blood and weird stuff.” That is a seminary professor. The cross is ugly and gross and embarrassing, and it is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. If the writers of the New Testament were making up a religion there is no way in the world they would have their God suffer and die and describe that in graphic detail in their writings. The cross violates the sensitivities of just about everyone.
But John has called this witness to the stand, so let’s hear what he has to say. Now at this point I have to tell you it is hard to me to know how much of the testimony from this witness I should include. If we went over it all it would take several years of sermons. We would have to cover all the prophecies, eight chapters of Matthew, nine chapters of Mark and Luke, and ten chapters of John – plus large portions of the rest of each of the epistles. For now we will just look at a few little snippets. 
The Lamb of God
One of the fascinating things about the death of Jesus was the timing of it. People started trying to kill Jesus as soon as He was born.
Herod the Great used his whole army to try to kill this one little baby, but failed.
They tried to throw Jesus off a cliff in Nazareth, but Jesus escaped.
In John 5:16 the Jewish leaders decided to kill Jesus, and when he claimed to be God they stepped up their efforts.
The attempts on His life became so obvious, that in John 7:25 some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, "Isn't this the man they are trying to kill? 
They tried to arrest Him, and failed.
In John 8 they tried to kill Him, but Jesus said “My hour has not yet come”
In John 10:30 they picked up stones to stone him and failed.
In John 11:53 the chief priests plotted to take his life. But they couldn’t, because His hour had not yet come. Nothing could happen outside of Jesus perfect timing.
Finally, in John 12:23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come.” It was all going to happen in Jesus’ timing – not theirs. In Matthew 26:2 Jesus told His disciples that the chief priests would kill Him right on Passover day, which was two days away. “In two days, on Passover day, they will kill Me.”
Then the next verse flashes across town. Right at the same time Jesus is saying that to His disciples the chief priests are in a meeting and they are beside themselves with anger. They have had more of him than they could possibly stand. In Matthew 26:4 they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. Verse 5 "But not during the Feast," they said, "or there may be a riot among the people." For them anytime was a great time to kill Jesus – except this week. This is the one time when they didn’t want to do it. They do not want a riot. Plus, if you got a guy claiming to be the sacrificial Lamb of Isaiah 53, the Lamb of God, the one to which the Passover pointed, the fulfillment of the picture of the entire sacrificial system, and He is going around announcing that you are going to crucify him on the Passover, the last thing you want to do is fulfill his prophesy. The whole point of the Passover is to picture salvation from God through the death of a spotless lamb. You do not want a character like Jesus to be killed on that day.
So they say, “Not during the week of the Passover feast.” And DEFINITLY not on the Passover day itself! And across town at that very moment Jesus is saying, “two days from now – right on the Passover.” Not only did it happen two days later on the day they vowed they would never do it, but the time of day that it happened is significant. In the Temple they had a morning sacrifice and an evening sacrifice. The morning one was at 9:00 and the evening one was at 3:00. That is when the lambs were slaughtered. According to Mark’s Gospel they nailed Jesus to the cross at the third hour (Mk.15:25). The Jewish day started at 6:00, so the third hour is 9:00. It just happened to work out that this One who claimed to be the Lamb of God was crucified at the very hour of the morning sacrifice. The nails were being pounded into His hands at the very time the priests’ knives were cutting the throats of the lambs in the Temple.
According to Luke’s Gospel the conversion of the thief on the cross took place at the sixth hour (noon) – three hours before the evening sacrifice (Lk.23:44). But Jesus didn’t die at noon.

Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." 44 It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

The Lamb of God was nailed to the cross in the hour of the morning sacrifice, and He breathed His last six hours later at the time of the evening sacrifice. If you are a phony, how do you get them to crucify you on the one day in the whole year they absolutely do not want to crucify you – the Passover? And how do you get it timed so you are nailed to the cross right at the morning sacrifice and breathe your last right at the evening sacrifice? 
Other signs at Jesus’ Death
That is just one of many signs at the crucifixion of Jesus. A couple others are mentioned in that same passage. The sky went dark for three hours in the middle of the day.
Jesus claimed to be the only way into the presence of God. And the moment He died, that huge, 60-foot high curtain that blocked off access to the dwelling place of God in the Temple was torn in half – from top to bottom.

Matthew 27:50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. 51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 

There was an earthquake so violent that it was causing rocks to split. If you were murdering someone who claimed to be the Son of God and when you did it the sky went black for three hours in the middle of the day followed by an earthquake, you think you would be a little nervous?
Maybe not. Maybe you can think of some natural explanations for those things. But how about what happened next?

52 The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. 54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"

John’s second witness, ugly as he appeared to be at first, is turning out to be a pretty compelling witness, isn’t he? But that is still not all.
The resurrection
One of the questions I had when I was studying this is, if John is trying to give us testimony to strengthen our faith, why does he not mention the resurrection? And the answer may be that he wanted to focus on Jesus’ death, because that is what was being doubted. As I said before, it was Jesus’ death that was the stumbling block.
But we should also realize that when Scripture refers to the blood of Christ, most of the time the reference is to the entire event of Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension. They don’t mention every part every time – they just use a single word sometimes to refer to the entire thing. Just like we do. When we put up a symbol of our faith we put up a cross. We don’t also put up an empty tomb, but that does not mean we are excluding the resurrection. And there is no reason for us to imagine that John would exclude parts of Jesus’ work. The suffering and the resurrection go together.
And the resurrection is the supreme proof of the claims of Jesus.

Act 17:30-31 God commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.

Jesus claimed to be the great, eternal I AM of the Old Testament. And to prove it He said He would be crucified on the Passover day, and then on the third day the Father would raise Him from the dead. And that is exactly what happened. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day is something you can prove from history without assuming the Bible is the Word of God. Once you have seen the evidence, it is irrational to doubt the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
It did happen, which means Jesus is who He claimed to be. Millions of very smart people have tried their hardest over the past 2000 years to come up with a reasonable alternative to explain the evidence in some other way, and no one has been able to do it yet.
The great majority of New Testament scholars are non-Christians who do not believe the resurrection took place. If you throw out all the scholars who do believe, and go only by the unbelievers who do not believe the Bible is the Word of God, even among them there is a consensus about certain facts surrounding the death of Jesus. The historically provable facts about which there is a consensus of agreement are these: 
There was a man named Jesus who did live during the time the Bible claims He did and He was from Nazareth. 
He claimed that He was the Son of God and that He would rise from the dead. 
He was crucified in Palestine under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar at Passover time. 
He was buried in the tomb of a rich man, and the tomb was guarded by Rome. On the third day that tomb was unexpectedly empty. 
Initially not even His followers believed – even when they saw the empty tomb. Then something happened that convinced His disciples and thousands of other Jews and Gentiles that He rose from the dead and was alive. 
They were so convinced that they were willing to die in great numbers for their belief. 
How do the unbelieving scholars explain all these facts in a way that does not point to resurrection? There have been a lot of attempts, but none of the explanations have gathered anything close to a consensus of agreement among the other scholars, because none of them can be supported by the evidence. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ happened. There is more proof of that event than of any other ancient historical event. It is the most certain fact there is from ancient history.
“Any questions for this witness Satan?”
Sigh, “No…just get him off the stand.”
At this point the devil’s case is absolutely demolished. And he is thinking, “Wait a second – that witness was God too. It was God who did all those things at the crucifixion and resurrection!” And so Satan looks to you and says, “I would like to request that the defense rest its case.” And John says, “No, I am not ready to do that. I still have my star witness to call. This witness is the most compelling of all.”

Conclusion
I wish we could hear this Witness now, but I am afraid we are going to have to call a recess at this point just because we are out of time. Next time we will plan on picking it up with the third witness. For now let’s just close with this: Where is it in your Christian life where you are not being victorious? Aren’t you failing in that area because your heart is not convinced that Christ is the supreme source of life in that area? There is some aspect of abundant life that your heart wants, and thinks it can get better from some other source besides Christ. Use the testimony of witnesses #1 and 2 to persuade your heart to seek life from the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Benediction: Heb.10:19-22 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus…21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.

Victory by Faith: Part 3 The Testimony of God 5:6b-10 

Summary: The testimony of the Holy Spirit is to illumine the rest of the testimony (enable you to understand, appreciate, and accept it). We believe almost everything we believe by the testimony of men, not science; how much more should we believe God, since His testimony is greater in reliability, scope, importance, authority, quality, and subject matter?
 
Introduction: The voice of God
Review
The Illumination of the Testimony
Example of illumination
The Spirit does not speak through obscurity
Three witnesses
Corroboration
The Superiority of the Testimony
Testimony vs. Science
We accept man’s testimony
Divine testimony is greater
Greater in reliability
Greater in scope
Greater in importance
Greater in authority
Greater in quality
Greater in subject matter
Therefore – believe it!
Conclusion: Listen to the voice of God

1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 

Introduction: The voice of God
When is the last time God spoke to you? How long has it been since the last time you received a clear, direct, unmistakable, verifiable communication directly from God? Some might answer, “That’s easy – 2000 years. God spoke in the Bible, and that’s His last Word – I don’t look for anything else. He has spoken to all people in exactly the same way – there are no unique messages for any individual people. We all have the same Bible, and that is God’s Word.”
Others might say, “No, the last time God spoke to me was just a couple minutes ago when we were reading the Scripture passage for this morning. He speaks to me every time I read His Word.”
And still others might say, “His voice isn’t limited to the Bible.” People like William Young, who wrote The Shack, and John Eldridge, who wrote Wild at Heart, say that to confine God’s voice to the Bible is to put God in a box. God speaks to them mainly through movies and relationships and music and cultural diversity, etc. 
And then, of course, you have a whole lot of people who say that God speaks to them through impulses and promptings and nudges and various other subjective feelings. If they have a gut feeling, they take that to be the voice of God speaking to them. In The Shack the main character asks the Holy Spirit how the Spirit will talk to him after he leaves the shack, and the Spirit says, “You will hear my thoughts in yours.” So you think what you think, and if you have gut feeling that some of those thoughts are from God, then they are from God. 
So which is it? How does God speak to us, and what does He say when He does speak? And how do we know when it is Him speaking?

Review
In chapter we find ourselves in courtroom scene, where you are sitting as the judge, listening to testimony. The trial is about whether or not the claims about Jesus Christ being the only source of life are true. If your heart becomes fully convinced that they are true, you will be victorious in the war against Satan and the world. So John is seeking to strengthen our faith by means of compelling testimony. The first witness John called to the stand was what he called “the water,” which is most likely a reference to the baptism of Jesus Christ. The events surrounding His baptism are undeniable proof that His claims are true. The second witness was the blood – the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. And you would think those two witnesses would be all that is needed, but John has one more witness to call. And this is his star witness. Without this witness, the case falls apart.

6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 

The third witness is the Holy Spirit. Jesus promised this before He died.

John.15:26 When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

The Illumination of the Testimony 
So in what way does the Holy Spirit testify? The testimony of this witness is unique. The primary role of the Spirit is to turn on the lights and open your eyes to the truth. That is why He is called the Spirit of truth.

John 14:16-17 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--17 the Spirit of truth.

John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.

John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

The Holy Spirit is an interesting witness. He does not offer any new testimony. All He does is get up from the witness stand, walk over to the light switch, and turn on the lights in the courtroom so you can see the other witnesses’ testimony.
The reason this witness is so important is because truth is not something the sinful human heart naturally accepts, because sin has a blinding, darkening effect on the human heart.

Romans 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, and their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Fail to glorify God, and you lose the light – you lose the ability to see the truth.

Ephesians 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

If your heart is hard, the result is a darkening of your understanding. Do not think of knowledge only as a matter of the intellect. Whether or not you believe something is not determined primarily by your mind. It is determined primarily by your heart and attitudes and affections. You think you decide things just by your brain processing data. But the way your brain processes data is determined by some factors way down deep inside your soul. It is determined by what your soul craves and longs for and delights in and loves and hates. And when our hearts become dark, so that those desires and affections deep within us are messed up and inclined in the wrong direction, which fouls up the whole process of how your brain analyses data, and the result is you misunderstand, misinterpret, draw wrong conclusions, and end up believing what is not truth. And every time we prefer sin over God’s grace we turn down the lights that much more.
Not only that, but Satan is also working to blind your heart to truth.

2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ

So not only does sin have a darkening effect on your heart, so does Satan.
And the only remedy for all this darkness and blindness is the enlightening, illuminating work of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 1:17-18 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you

The Holy Spirit – the Spirit of wisdom and revelation – enlightens your heart so you can see the truth clearly and know God.
We call this the doctrine of illumination. “Illumination” means “to light up.” And it is a doctrine that is very often misunderstood. Many people think illumination is simply a matter of the Holy Spirit enabling you to understand what the Bible says. That comes from 1 Corinthians 2.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Usually when people refer to that passage they focus on the intellect. They say, “The unbeliever cannot understand the Bible, but the believer can.” Understanding is part of it, but not all of it. Many times non-Christians can understand what the Bible means just fine. In fact, sometimes they understand the meaning of a particular verse better than many Christians. The focus of the passage is not on understanding what the Bible means. The focus is on understanding it and accepting what it means.

14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him
Example of illumination 
Illumination is when the Holy Spirit turns on the lights so that you can not only understand what the principle is, but you can also see how wonderful and delightful it is, so that your heart will embrace it. Suppose you struggle with the sin of pride so you do a Bible study about humility, and you look up the words and do research and discover all kinds of information about the definition of humility. But still, your old ways seem better to you. The idea of being a humble person does not appeal to you as much as the way you are used to living.
But then, illumination happens. The Holy Spirit opens your eyes. He brings some truly humble person across your path, so you can see what a wonderful thing humility really is. And He moves in your heart so that when you see that person you really like what you see. And then you want humility. Now humility really does look more attractive to you than your old prideful way of living. So you do the Bible study again. But this time there is an eagerness in your heart to become humble. And the Holy Spirit turns on the lights in Scripture and shows you from His Word the pathway toward gaining this humility that you desire so much.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to turn on the lights. He turns on the lights to show you how glorious Christ is, and how rewarding Christ’s way is, and how delightful Christ’s rewards are. He turns on the lights so you can see how true the testimony that has been given really is.
The Spirit does not speak through obscurity 
That is why, back at the beginning of chapter 4, John said you test every spirit according to the Scriptures. Does the Holy Spirit speak to you today on an individual, private basis? Absolutely, positively, yes! He does, and that is one of the most wonderful, precious experiences of the Christian life. But how does He speak? By floating a thought into your head and then giving you a gut feeling that it is from Him, and hoping you can tell the difference between that and last night’s spicy burrito? No – it is not a gut feeling. Does He speak to you by throwing some crazy coincidences into your path and then expecting you to interpret the meaning of those coincidences? No. He does not speak to you through obscurity and vague, ambiguous, things that could be easily misinterpreted. The Holy Spirit is not unclear when He speaks. He does not communicate by means of vagueness and darkness. He communicates by turning on the lights, so whenever the Spirit speaks to you it is unmistakable and crystal clear. When it is not crystal clear that is a sure sign He is not speaking to you. He speaks to you by opening your eyes to wisdom and to Scripture – so you can see what is there and what it means and what the significance of it is and how wonderful it is and how it applies to your specific situation at the moment.
So one of the best tests of whether the voice you heard was the Holy Spirit is whether you can show someone else what He showed you. If you pray and ask God, “Dear Lord, show me whether I should take this job or that job. Show me which one is the wisest path.” And the Holy Spirit answers your prayer and shows you, He does it by turning on the lights and making it evident. And so you should be able to show others. You should be able to come to me and say, “See, Darrell, why this job is the wisest course rather than that job? See how this biblical principle of wisdom applies in this situation?”
If I pray and ask God to help me understand a passage of Scripture and He does, I should be able to come to you on Sunday morning and say, “See. Can you see how this is the correct interpretation?” I do not come here on Sunday mornings and say, “I have a gut feeling this is right, so just trust me.” When the Holy Spirit speaks to you, you do not have to rely on gut feelings because He makes the truth plain to see. And if it is really that plain, you should be able to show it to others.
That is why when someone comes to me and says, “God spoke to me in my devotions!..,” and then they tell me something God supposedly said to them through some passage of Scripture, and it is not even the correct interpretation of that passage, then I know it was not the Holy Spirit who spoke to them because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and He speaks not by communicating error, or by showing you something that is not even there, but by turning on the lights so you can plainly see what is there. How do you know that it was the voice of God that spoke to you? The proof that the lights are on is…you can see what is there!
And that is why the Spirit is John’s star witness. Without the Holy Spirit, you read about the baptism of Christ and the miracles, and the crucifixion and resurrection…, and it is all just a lot of words – it does not penetrate your heart and generate greater faith or you misinterpret it and misunderstand it. 
But once John’s star witness takes the stand, the rest of the testimony becomes clear. He does not add any new testimony; He just turns on the lights in the courtroom so you can see the significance and truth of the testimony that has already been offered.
If you were here last Sunday, and you heard the testimony of the water and blood, you heard what God had to say at Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion and resurrection, and your soul was delighted by what you heard, and you drank it in and loved it and accepted it and were moved by it and found it persuasive and good; that response in your heart IS the testimony of the Holy Spirit. But if all that testimony last week just rebounded off your heart and left you unmoved, unchanged, uninterested, then you didn’t receive the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which means you did not receive anything.
So the Spirit’s role is the illumination of the testimony. He lights it up so you can see it, and he lights up your heart so you like what you see. And if you want that in simple terms, it is like - God the Father testifies, and our dull, dead, sinful, twisted hearts hear it and say, “Huh? What?” and the Holy Spirit says, “Here – let me show you,” and then we say, “Ah ha! I see! That is sweet!” – that is how the testimony of the Holy Spirit works.
Can you see why it is such a serious sin to reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit? If you reject the truth before the Spirit has turned on the lights, that is bad. But if you reject the truth after the Spirit as turned on the lights, that is blasphemy against the Spirit.
Three witnesses 

7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 

Corroboration 
One of the main ways you determine whether to believe a witness is by whether there is corroborating testimony. If someone tells you something that is hard to believe, you might remain skeptical until that information is verified by some other sources. So the more the sources the more you tend to be convinced when they all agree. So John gives us three witnesses that all corroborate each other.
He gives us three in this context – in his gospel he gives several more. 
In John 1 John the Baptist is a witness.
In John 3:33 Jesus testifies.
The woman at the well testifies as a witness in John 4:39.
The work of Jesus’ earthly ministry testifies in John 5:36.
The Father testified in John 5:37.
And the Scriptures testify in John 5:39.
In John 10:25 Jesus’ miracles testify.
The Holy Spirit in John 15:26, and the Apostles in John 15:27 (and again in 21:24).
God has given abundant proof. He does not require blind faith. Blindness does not even lead to faith – it leads to unbelief. God solves the problem of blind unbelief by turning on the lights and giving sight to our blind eyes so we can see the truth and believe it.

The Superiority of the Testimony 
So that is the illumination of the testimony. Now in verse 9 John speaks of the superiority of the testimony. 

9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
Testimony vs. Science 
Last week we addressed the question of whether testimony is even a valid way of discerning truth. The Emergent Church folks argue against the idea of propositional truth, but we found that is a self-refuting argument. (They have to use propositions to argue against propositional truth.) The fact that God expects His testimony to build our faith shows that propositional truth is valid.
But there is another category of people who sometimes argue against using testimony as a means of discerning truth. We live in a culture that worships science and there are many who say they will not believe anything unless it is proven scientifically. They say that science is the only valid way to know for sure if something is true. You come to them with the claims of Christianity and they say, “I can’t observe that in a test tube, I can’t see that in a lab, therefore it is not in the realm of true or false.” They say, “We are not like primitive cultures that believed things based on non-scientific evidence. We are advanced and educated and, above all, scientific. So we cannot buy into creationism or Christianity, because it is not reproducible in a lab.”
We accept man’s testimony
But look at the first statement in verse 9.

9 We accept man's testimony…

Is that true as a general statement? People claim they will not believe anything based on testimony alone. They will not believe it unless they see it in a lab. They will not take anyone’s word for anything. But John says, “No – you believe all kinds of things based on testimony alone.”
In fact, almost everything you believe you believe based on testimony alone. And that is true of everyone. Even the most scientific scientist on the planet believes more than 99% of what he believes because of testimony, not science. I have known a number of scientists over the years, and every one of them believes that light travels at about 186,000 miles per second. But how many of them do you suppose actually, personally, measured the speed of light in a lab? They do not believe light travels at that speed because they performed scientific experiments and observed the results. They believe it because of reliable testimony from the people who did measure it.
Most scientists have not personally observed the structure of DNA, or verified the efficacy of the flu vaccine in a lab, or even verified the claims on the packaging of a hot dog about how many grams of protein it contains. They accept it all on testimony. And when they go home at night and their wife mentions that she enjoyed an egg salad sandwich for lunch, they don’t require video tape or have her stomach pumped before they believe that it is true. And if the weather man says the record high for this date was 85, they believe it. If the tag on their shirt says it is made of cotton, they regard it as a cotton shirt. 99.99% of everything we believe we believe because of testimony. John is exactly right – we believe man’s testimony. We all do – it is how we live our lives.
Science is not a superior means of discerning truth over testimony. It has its place to be sure, but it is very limited. The primary way all human beings determine what is true and not true is through testimony. Somebody tells you something, you discern how reliable the source of that testimony is, and you believe it or doubt it based on your judgment of how reliable they are.
Testimony is a valid way to discern what is true, testimony is the primary way we all discern truth, and, I would even go so far as to say that testimony is the most reliable way to discern what is true – even more reliable than the scientific method. Even for the scientist, reliable testimony trumps personal observation. If a reliable enough source tells you that things are different from what you think you see with your own eyes, you will believe that testimony even over your own senses. If I open a book of optical illusions and it tells me that the lines that look curved are actually straight, I believe the testimony of the book even over what I see with my own eyes. If I see something levitate in thin air before my very eyes, and the magician assures me that it was just a trick and that it did not really float, I will accept his testimony over my own observation.
The primary way human beings determine what reality is, is testimony. So when people want to reject the truth of Christianity with the excuse that it is not scientific, that is irrational.
Divine testimony is greater
So John reminds us that we believe human testimony all the time. Every day, all day long you receive human testimony and instantly believe it and make decisions based on it. That is how you live your life – you could not even function without doing that. And John is saying, “If you live your whole life and base almost all your decisions on human testimony, how should you respond to divine testimony?” Divine testimony is greater.

9 We accept man's testimony but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 

The testimony of all three witnesses is the testimony of God. It was God who testified at Jesus’ baptism, when He spoke audibly from heaven. It was God who testified at the crucifixion, when He turned the sky dark and ripped the veil in the Temple, and sent the earthquake and raised all those people from the dead, and then raised Jesus from the dead. And of course the Holy Spirit is God. So the testimony from all three witnesses is the testimony of God, which is why, in verse 9, John refers to all of it as “the testimony of God.”
And testimony from God is greater than testimony from men. When you first read that verse you might think, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.” What could be more obvious than the fact that God’s testimony is greater than man’s? But one of the things you notice when you read John is that he is Captain Obvious sometimes, but the obvious things he points out are always things that, even though they should be obvious, we struggle to believe them! How many times every day do you do things based on your confidence in human testimony – from getting off on an exit to putting things in your mouth that are said to be edible; and yet how many times do we fail to act in accordance with the things God has testified to? The weatherman says there is an 80% chance of snow tonight and they are expecting four feet, and you make decisions accordingly. God says there is a 100% chance that the pleasure of a sin will not be worth it, and we behave as though it were not true. Maybe John would not have to state the obvious so much if we were a little more prone to believe the obvious. So John has to tell us – the testimony of God is greater than that testimony of man, which you accept and base your decisions upon every day. And it is greater in several ways.

Greater in reliability
First, it is greater in reliability. Look back at the end of verse 6.

6 …And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

The Holy Spirit is the standard of truth. He is the definition of what is true and what is not true. There is zero falsehood in Him.
God is omniscient – he knows absolutely everything. On top of that He is perfectly honest. And on top of that He is a perfect communicator. He never misstates anything.
In contrast to that, man has limited knowledge, is deceitful, and often miscommunicates. So if we accept the testimony of man, how much more impact should God’s testimony have on us, since He is infinitely more reliable and trustworthy?

Greater in scope
Secondly, God’s testimony is greater in scope. That is, it covers everything that is important. The thing about testimony is, it can be 100% true but still be misleading if some important factor is left out. If the witness in court says, “That man right there took all the money out of the cash register during the robbery,” but he leaves out that fact that the guy was an innocent bystander who was forced to take the money out at gunpoint – you leave that part out and you have a completely incorrect understanding of what happened. Even true testimony is unhelpful if it is incomplete. 
God never leaves out anything that is important. Everything you need to know about God and spiritual things is in the Bible. Everything!
You can research an investment opportunity and learn 10,000 facts about it, but if you are missing one key fact it can change everything. If your car is broken and you know everything there is to know about cars except one thing, you may still not be able to fix it. The Library of Congress has 532 miles worth of shelves full of books. If you read and memorized every word in every one of those books, minus the Bible, you would be missing key information. The Bible is missing nothing about God or about spiritual things that you need to know. God’s testimony is the only testimony that is perfectly comprehensive in scope.

Greater in importance
We operate our lives every day based on human testimony, we accept human testimony, and yet God’s testimony is greater in reliability, greater in scope, and also – greater in importance. Not only does man’s testimony tend to leave out important things, it also tends to add unimportant things. If man says something it may or may not be significant. Just because they report something on the news does not mean you actually need to know that thing, right? Students in school will ask the instructor – “Is this going to be on the test?” And we are always sort of asking that question in life – every piece of information we receive we ask, “Am I going to need this? Or is it worthless information that I can afford to just ignore or forget?” And the vast majority of the information we receive is in that category – we do not need to know it.
Have you ever had someone tell you something and include so much extraneous detail that the point they are making is lost altogether? There are people who think that every single thing they can remember about the story might as well be thrown in when they tell it. And when they finally get done talking you ask them what their original point is and they don’t even remember.
One of the great things about God is He never gives TMI – too much information. He never allows what is important to be obscured by detail. His testimony about reality is so much greater than man’s, because not only is man’s testimony not perfectly reliable, but even what is reliable is so voluminous that the important things get lost in a vast ocean of worthless facts.
People always ask, “Why didn’t God tell us this or that?” He did not tell us because it was not important for us to know. And if He told us something important, and then included a whole lot of other things that were not important but that satisfied someone’s curiosity, how would we ever know which things were important and which were not? Praise God that we do not have to read the Bible and then figure out whether what we just read was important! You have to do that with every other thing you read – but not the Bible. We do not have to sort out the wheat from the chaff – it is all wheat! That is why when I preach I do not hopscotch through the Bible skipping over passages that do not seem relevant or important. If a passage does not seem relevant or important that is all the more reason why I need to study it, because it is both relevant and important, and if it does not seem that way to me then I don’t understand it and so I need to study it all the more. Everything that is important for you to know about God and spiritual things is in the Bible, and there is nothing in there that is not important for you to know.

Greater in authority
We live our lives based on the testimony of man. And yet God’s testimony is greater in reliability, greater in scope, greater in importance, and, also, greater in authority. One thing a lot of folks in our culture do not realize is that of all the facts in the universe, many of them are “should” statements. The sky is blue – that is a statement of fact. Blue is prettier than green – that is a statement of opinion, not fact. The sun is hot – that is a matter of fact. New Mexico is a better place to live than Florida – that is a matter of opinion.
Some statements are fact and some are opinion. And in our world most people think any time you have the word “should” in a statement, it is automatically a matter of opinion. People should bake more chocolate chip cookies – that is a matter of opinion. However, not all “should” statements are opinion. People should love God – that is fact, not opinion. People should not murder or commit adultery or steal or covet – fact.
What makes something a matter of opinion is if it comes from someone who has no authority over that area. I am not the boss of desserts (sadly), and so my preferences about cookies are nothing more than opinion. But God is the authority over everything and everyone, so when He has a preference, that preference comes to us as an obligation. If God prefers kindness over rudeness, then the statement “Kindness is better than rudeness” is a fact, not an opinion. Whatever God likes is in point of fact better than what He does not like.
That is one thing the antinomians do not understand (antinomians are people who say we are not obligated to obey God’s law.) They say if you try to obey God’s law, that is legalism, and so you should not do it. 
What those people do not understand is if God has an opinion about whether something is good or bad, that makes it a fact. So under law or under grace – either way, the fact that rudeness is bad is still a fact, which means I should not be rude. And God’s grace does not alter that fact.
Our culture hates should and shouldn’t statements, because the natural condition of the fallen human heart is one of rebellion against God’s authority. But one of the ways God’s testimony is greater than man’s is in the fact that it is greater in authority. God is the supreme authority and so His testimony does not just inform us; it obligates us.

Greater in quality
When a human being tells you something, that may or may not be beneficial to you. Believing that person may result in good and it may result in harm. But God’s testimony always results in your good when you believe it.

Psalm 19:7 The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.

Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies

Psalm 119:111 Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.

If Peter Jennings comes on TV and tells me that something is true – that does not feed my soul. It does not edify me or sanctify me or make me more like Christ. It does not do anything to transform my heart or change my messed-up affections or increase my love or build my faith. But the testimony of God does all those things (if I accept it). When God says something is true, and you believe Him, that has a life-giving effect on your soul. It has an effect on your heart that is like the effect of nutrition to your body or exercise to your muscles or oxygen to your blood. Divine testimony is spiritual food – it is greater in quality than human testimony.

Greater in subject matter
And one more – the testimony of God is greater in subject matter.

10 …Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.

God’s testimony is about His Son. When God talks, that is pretty much all He talks about. When has God ever said anything that was not ultimately about His Son?

Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

It is all about the Son – the whole Bible.

John 5:39 You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me

Hebrews 2:3-4 This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

When God testifies He testifies about the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Think of the effort we put into hearing about lesser topics. There are Christians who will spend their time learning what outfit some celebrity is wearing, or whether she dumped her latest boyfriend. We go to college and pay them tens of thousands of dollars to give us information about business, or engineering, or biology. If information about those topics is worth tens of thousands, how much is information about the Son of God worth? If there is some interesting documentary on TV, we will give that two hours of our time. If there is an interesting news article or a good book – we will sink hours into taking in that testimony from man. But whether it is celebrity gossip or cutting-edge investment information or fascinating scientific research, compared to the gospel of Jesus Christ it is all trivia. If someone testifies about some other subject, fine. But may my interest in that never approach the level of my interest in listening to God the Father testify about His own Son.
We all have an interest in hearing the top expert in our field speak on his area of expertise. A lot of kids would love to hear Kobe Bryant speak on basketball. The Wall Street types would show up in large numbers to hear Warren Buffett on investments. I would pay money to hear Daniel Wallace speak on New Testament Greek, or John MacArthur on discernment, or Piper on joy. But the best of all is the Father on the Son. When the greatest Teacher speaks on the greatest topic, it calls for our greatest interest – and our wholehearted faith.

Therefore – believe it!
If we believe human testimony, and God’s testimony is this much greater, - what insanity it is not to believe it. So ask – what is more compelling in your heart – God’s testimony or man’s? One way you can tell is by which way you go when God’s and man’s testimony conflict. When there is a conflict, which way do you lean? If God gives His description of when and how this world was created, and man gives his ideas, and there is a conflict between the two, which one has to adjust to fit the other one? Are you the type that says, “Well, the great majority of scientists agree that the earth is billions of years old, so we know for sure that’s true. That is the starting point. Now – how can we interpret the Bible to be compatible with that?”
Do you take that approach, or do you take the Bible at face value and say, “The plain meaning of the text according to the ordinary rules of language give us this meaning. So that is my starting point – now, how can I interpret what we see in the rocks and everything else in a way that is compatible with that?” Which side is the immovable baseline and which side has to adjust? Would you ever go against the consensus of secular scientists because of something in the Bible? Whose testimony are you going to accept? (I am always amazed at people who trust scientists more than God on the question of what happened at the creation. God’s testimony is eye-witness testimony.)
How about in matters of the soul? If the experts in the world say you have to learn to love yourself in order to love others properly, but God says self-love is a wicked evil, which testimony are you going to accept? If God says the Bible is sufficient and the world says, “No, you need psychology,” whose testimony is more compelling in your heart?
What about when God’s testimony conflicts with the testimony of your own ideas? God says, “Church discipline is loving” and your heart says, “To me it feels unloving” – which testimony are you going to accept? Your heart says, “This thing I am doing feels right” and God’s Word says, “No, it is wrong,” who are you going to believe?
The question of whether God’s testimony is greater than man’s seems obvious, but we struggle with that big time. It is a constant war to keep our hearts convinced that God’s testimony is more reliable than man’s.
Probably this whole first paragraph should be removed or reworded
Conclusion: Listen to the voice of God
There are three parts to this section – the illumination of the testimony of God in verses 6-8, the superiority of the testimony of God in verse 9, and then the results of the testimony of God in verses 10-12. We are out of time for this morning, so we will have to wait for next week for that third point. But I hope you can all be here next week, because that is where the rubber hits the road on all of this – in the outcome and result of God’s testimony in your heart.
But for now let’s close our time by just reminding ourselves of the overall context of this chapter. Don’t forget that all of this is springing out of verse 5.

1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

We are still talking about how to overcome the world and have victory in your Christian life. Victory comes only through faith in the Son. 
The solution to all your problems is faith in the Son of God. Do you know someone with a drug or alcohol problem? What they need to have victory over that is faith in the Son of God – and to have faith in the Son of God they need to hear what the Father’s testimony about the Son. It is only when they receive the truth about the Son from the Father, and the Holy Spirit turns on the lights so they can accept it and embrace it, that they will have victory.
If you know someone whose marriage is falling apart (or if yours is falling apart), what is needed is faith in the Son of God. If you are in financial trouble the solution is in the Son of God. If you are depressed, afraid, apathetic, bored, in trouble, in bondage, defeated, confused, lost, wayward, prideful, lethargic, whatever the enemy is coming after you with – victory will come through faith in the Son of God. So listen when God speaks.
Listen to what the Father says about the Son, and do not resist or ignore the testimony of the Spirit. And if God is not speaking to you right now – if the lights have been turned off, none of it makes sense to you, none of it has any appeal, it is not delightful to your soul, it leaves you unchanged and just as weak as ever, then cry out to God with everything that is in you and beseech Him to send His Spirit to turn on the lights.
And if the lights are on, and you understand, and you love what you hear – rejoice! Every time you ever understand something in the Bible, every time you can see the wise course, every time you can perceive how a biblical principle applies to your situation, every time something that is preached strikes a chord in your heart or convicts you, do you realize that is the voice of almighty God speaking directly to you – personally, individually, clearly, at that moment? Listen to Him!

Victory by Faith: Part 4 God’s Verdict on Your Verdict on God 5:10-13

Summary: In the small courtroom you have been listening as a judge to the testimony of God about the gospel. But the moment you render your verdict the scene widens and you see the bigger courtroom and realize you are the one on trial. Based on your verdict of the testimony you are judged by God to either have or not have eternal life. Failure to believe is idolatry, rebellion, and blasphemy. But if you do believe you have eternal life (heavenly life characterized by knowing God, not having His wrath on you, walking in the light, being satisfied, and living forever. This comes only through being connected to Jesus Christ by faith, which is believing so thoroughly that the gospel becomes a part of you, and you give yourself totally to Him.

Introduction: You are the one on trial
The Wrong Verdict
Idolatry: A higher standard than God
Rebellion: unwillingness to believe
Blasphemy: Despising the testimony of the Holy Spirit
The Right Verdict
The Assurance of Eternal Life
Life in the Son = the core of the gospel
The meaning of eternal life
Heavenly Life (Belonging to the age to come)
1) Knowing God and His Son (Jn.17:3)
2) Not or having God’s wrath remain on you (Jn.3:36)
3) Having light & not walking in darkness (Jn.8:12)
4) Having the hunger and thirst of your soul perpetually satisfied (Jn.4:14, 6:27)
5) Living forever (Jn.3:16, 10:28, 5:24, 6:40,54)
The Agent of Eternal Life
Life in the Son alone
Having the Son
The Access to Eternal Life
“In himself” – the testimony becomes part of you
“Believe in” – Total commitment
Conclusion

1 John 5:5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 6 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 9 We accept man's testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. 

10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 
Introduction: You are the one on trial
John has had us in a courtroom. On trial is the gospel – Is it true or not? You are sitting there as the judge on the bench listening to all the testimony and John has been calling witnesses offering compelling testimony to persuade you so that your faith can be built up and strengthened. And that is important because it is only through faith that you can have victory over the world. But now, starting in verse 10, John is going to show us something totally different. He is going to pan back with the camera and show us a wider angle on this courtroom, and we are going to find out that the courtroom is completely different from what we thought it was. In this passage he shifts the paradigm so completely that we find that what is happening in this courtroom is much different than what it seemed to be.
This whole time we have been listening to the testimony of God about His Son. We heard the testimony of the water (Jesus’ baptism), the testimony of the blood (Jesus’ death & resurrection) and the testimony of the Holy Spirit, who turns on the lights in our hearts so we can see, understand, appreciate, love, believe, and embrace God’s testimony about His Son.

The Wrong Verdict
But what if you are not convinced by the testimony? What if you hear all the evidence that is being presented, and it just simply is not enough to persuade your heart to believe? We all have different standards for what evidence we find persuasive, right? For some people all it takes to convince them that something is true is for them to get it in a forwarded email, and they accept every word. For others they have to see confirmation from 10 different peer-reviewed scholarly journals. So what if you are sitting there in the courtroom with the gavel in your hand, hearing all the evidence, and when it is all said and done – you are still not convinced?
That is exactly what happens in verse 10.

10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe…

OK – there it is. John is going to tell us what to make of it when someone hears the testimony and does not believe.

10 Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 

The trial is over. And you pound your gavel and say, “OK, I have rendered my verdict on the gospel.” And the same split-second that you do that, you just about jump out of your skin from the deafening crash that happens right behind you. Immediately after your little gavel bumps down on the desk and you announce your verdict, you hear the sound of a huge, massive gavel slam down right behind you and you hear the voice of God saying, “Now I have rendered My verdict.” And you look around and immediately realize that you are not the judge in this courtroom after all. You thought you were sitting behind the bench as the judge, but now you can see that you are the one on trial, and God is sitting at the bench.
All of the sudden your perspective widens, and you can see the entire courtroom. And you realize there are two courtrooms – a smaller one inside a bigger one. In the small courtroom you are the judge, and the testimony is being offered to build your faith. But in the big courtroom you look around and realize that your verdict on God’s testimony is the evidence on which God renders His verdict on you!
So you stand up from what you thought was the judge’s bench, and you notice there are two doors adjacent to the courtroom. And one by one all of humanity comes and sits in that same chair you were sitting in, and renders a verdict on the testimony of God. Each one who is persuaded by the testimony is escorted into the room on the right, and the ones who are not persuaded are taken into the room on the left. The door on the right is marked, “Eternal life.” And the one on the left is the one for people who call God a liar.
You see, Jesus is who He claimed to be. That is not up for debate. The purpose of the trial is not to establish that – the purpose of the trial is to establish whether you are sighted or blind. It is to establish whether you are a Christian or an antichrist. It is to determine whether you are alive or dead.
The testimony of God is the standard of truth, and your assessment of it says nothing about whether the gospel is true, but everything about your heart. If I look at a yardstick and say, “It’s too long” or “It’s too short” – that does not say anything about the yardstick. It just tells you that I am not a good judge of how long a yard is.
The goodness of a soul is measured by how that soul responds to ultimate goodness. Suppose an elderly widow is attacked and brutally beaten to death. If you see that and say, “That was wonderful. I liked that, and I think that sort of thing should happen more often.” If you respond that way to evil it shows that you are evil, right? And if you see someone who is good, and you are delighted by what you see, that shows some goodness in your heart. So when you judge a horrible crime to be good or bad, or you judge virtues like love or wisdom or humility to be good or bad, when you make those judgments it is you who is on trial. Your verdict says nothing about whether those things are good or bad. It is already established what they are. Your verdict serves only to put on display the condition of your heart.
So when God offers testimony about His Son you are simultaneously the judge and the defendant. And as the defendant, the only evidence that is admissible in your trial is your verdict about the testimony of God. If you try to offer other evidence it will not be allowed. If you say, “But I’m a really good person” – even if that were true it would not be admissible. Your eternal destiny is determined only by one thing – what is your verdict on the testimony of God about His Son. I have titled this sermon, “God’s Verdict on Your Verdict on God.” Every one of us must judge God and His Word and render a verdict. And the verdict you render exposes the truth about your heart. And God then looks at your verdict on Him and based on that alone pronounces His verdict on you.
This is the same dual role that God’s testimony plays in the Gospel of John. John uses the word testimony quite often, and most of the references to testimony in the Gospel of John come in contexts in which there is a conflict between Jesus and the world. In each case the testimony serves a dual purpose. The immediate purpose is to provide a foundation for believing – to give adequate evidence for those who are willing to believe. But it also serves the wider purpose of exposing who has eternal life and who is lost.
And someone might say, “Why? Why am I condemned to eternal hell just because I wasn’t persuaded by the evidence?” There are three reasons.
Idolatry: A higher standard than God
First, if you are not persuaded by the testimony of God that means you have some other standard by which you judged that testimony. If I tell you that a yardstick is longer or shorter than an actual yard, that means I must have some standard of a yard that I regard as more authoritative than the yardstick. If God is God then He is the highest authority on truth. So if you judge Him to be wrong about something you are saying He is not really even God. Whatever your other standard is that you are using to measure God – that is the thing you believe to be the real God. And so you are guilty of idolatry.
Suppose God takes some precious thing or person away from you and you get angry at God. Your anger says that God was wrong to take that person or thing away. And if God was wrong, you must have some higher authority than God on what makes something right or wrong. Usually that higher authority is yourself. It seems wrong to you, therefore it is wrong. And if God goes ahead and does it, He is wrong. Now you have made yourself the ultimate standard by which God’s actions are to be measured.
The same is true for those times when something seems right to you even though God says it is wrong. If you decide it is right because it seems right to you, you have made yourself God, and the highest authority on right and wrong. 
It is a very serious thing to call God a liar, or to set yourself or anyone else up as a higher authority on what is true or not true.

Romans 3:4 Let God be true, and every man a liar. 

Have you ever had someone tell you something and realized, “Wow – if I believe what this person is telling me, that means I would have to conclude that this other person is lying”? This verse is saying that if it came down to the point where in order to believe God you would have to call every human being on the planet a liar, you should do exactly that. If you come across something in the Bible and you think, “Wow – if I accept that as true that means I would be calling every scientist in the world a liar” – not even that should stop you from believing it. If you see something in Scripture and realize, “If that is true, every textbook I have ever read is wrong” – that should not stop you from believing it. God’s testimony about what is true is more reliable than all other evidence combined.
So when a person decides his own ideas are a higher standard than God’s Word, that person has made himself God and called God a liar. And all unbelief does that. Any failure at all to believe something God has said is calling God a liar, and it is idolatry. And we are all guilty of that every day, right? When God says there is a 100% chance that sin will not be worth it, and I decide to go ahead and sin, I have called God a liar. When God promises to take care of me and always do what is best, and I worry, I am calling Him a liar. If He claims all His ways are perfect, and I get angry at Him for something, I am calling Him a liar.
So we are all guilty of doing that all the time. However for the believer, when we lapse into calling God a liar, that is not our final verdict. We fail to believe Him on some point and then we come to our senses and repent. When we do that, God forgives us. But for the person who does not repent of his unbelief – that person is lost.
Rebellion: unwillingness to believe
God has provided adequate proof of the gospel. He has given us evidence upon evidence upon evidence. There are some matters we just simply do not have adequate evidence to render a final judgment. But the gospel is not one of them. God has made it crystal clear that it is true.
And that means when anyone is unconvinced by the evidence the only explanation is a hard heart that is unwilling to believe. You can see that in verse 10. In fact, according to New Testament scholar Raymond Brown, that is exactly the force of John’s repetitive use of the word “believe” in verse 10. When he says…

Anyone who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed…;

the force of that repetition is to show that there is an obstinate refusal to believe.
Spiritual blindness is always a moral problem - always. When I was a kid and my parents showed me green things and I thought they were brown, and I called brown things green, they did not question whether there was something wrong with those colors. They knew immediately there was something wrong with me, and they took me to the doctor and I was diagnosed with color blindness. The reason I cannot see green and red right is because something is messed up in my eyes. And the reason people cannot see the truth and beauty of God’s Word right is because something is messed up in their hearts. And that something is called rebellion. Color blindness is no big deal – you can live with it. But truth-blindness is a fatal illness, because it is caused by rebellion against God. Something inside the truth-blind person refuses to believe, and so no amount of proof is enough to persuade him.
He realizes that if he acknowledges the gospel as true it will mean giving up something he really does not want to give up. It will make demands on his life that he does not want to deal with so his heart says, “No, I’m not willing to believe that.” And over time that unwillingness turns into inability. It darkens the heart so he cannot see the truth.
Blasphemy: Despising the testimony of the Holy Spirit 
The only unforgivable sin is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And I am convinced blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is when you reject the truth after the Holy Spirit has turned on the lights. If you reject the truth before the Spirit has turned on the lights, that is bad. But if you reject the truth after the Spirit as turned on the lights, that blasphemes Him.

Hebrews 6:4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened … who have shared in the Holy Spirit, … 6 and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance…

Once the Holy Spirit gives His testimony, and opens your eyes and enlightens your heart so that you can see the truth and beauty of the gospel, if you reject that truth even then, you cannot be forgiven.
That is not to say every lapse of faith is the unforgivable sin. However – every lapse in faith is similar in kind, if not in degree, to the unforgivable sin.
And if God presents you with the evidence of the truth of the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit enlightens your heart to see the truth and goodness of that evidence, and you do not allow yourself to be persuaded because of some sin you want to hang on to, if you persist long enough in that condition the time will come when the Holy Spirit will withdraw and you will no longer be able to repent and receive the truth. He will turn off the lights for good, and then there will be no hope at all.
So any time there is any hint of unbelief in our hearts it should set off massive alarm bells and cause us to take whatever drastic action is necessary to be cured of our truth-blindness before it becomes fatal. 

The Right Verdict
The Assurance of Eternal Life
Those are the implications for those who render the wrong verdict, but that is not really John’s main concern in this text. His main concern is to talk about those who make the right verdict. If that is you, then this book is for you.

13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

If you do not believe, go back to the Gospel of John. That book was written in order to generate faith in your heart.

John 20:30-31 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

But the book of 1 John was written for those of us who do believe for the purpose of making us certain about the fact that we have eternal life in Christ. 

Life in the Son = the core of the gospel
That is as good a summary of the gospel that there is.

11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

When you dig down to the bottom of the New Testament to see the foundation, when you penetrate all the way to the inner core of the Gospel and you boil it down to its most essential message – that is it: The gift of eternal life through faith in the Son of God. That is the beginning point and ending point of the Gospel. And it is the beginning and ending of the book of 1 John.

1 John 1:1 …this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 

That is how the book starts, and here is how it ends:

1 John 5:20 … we are … in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

So John says, “If you want to know the bottom line on our message – that is it. It is all about the gift of eternal life through faith in the Son of God.” That is why he wrote the Gospel of John and that is why he wrote the epistle of 1 John, so it is no surprise that John would devote a section here in chapter 5 to the subject of eternal life in the Son.

The meaning of eternal life
So let’s take a moment to remind ourselves what eternal life is.
Heavenly Life (Belonging to the age to come)
We can start by defining the word “eternal.” When you see that word in the Bible don’t just think “never-ending” or “everlasting.” The word means more than that. The Greek word is aionios. That comes from the root word aion, which means “age.” (We get our word eon from it.) So aionios literally means “belonging to/characteristic of the age” (referring to the age to come).
Eternal life is life that belongs to the age to come. Eternal life is the kind of life that we will experience in heaven after Christ returns and eliminates all evil and suffering and death, and sets all things right. So when you see the phrase “eternal life” in the Bible you could substitute the phrase “heavenly life.” When you become a Christian there are certain parts of the age to come that you get to experience even now, here in this present age. And the life of heaven is one of them.
So do not think of eternal life as merely existing forever. People in hell will exist forever. Every person ever born will exist forever. But there is more to life than existence. People in hell will be awake, aware, alert – they will have bodies, they will be able to think and speak and weep and scream, but they will not have life. They will not enjoy the kind of existence that God designed human beings to enjoy in heaven.
So what is the life of heaven? John does not define it here – probably because he already explained in detail what it is in his Gospel. So let’s just glance back to the Gospel of John and see if we can learn what John means by eternal life.
1) Knowing God and His Son (Jn.17:3) 
The most direct statement about the meaning of eternal life is in Jesus’ prayer in John 17.

John 17:3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Having eternal life means knowing God (knowing in the biblical sense – deep, intimate, relational knowledge). Personal, relational interaction with a God who favors you – that is heavenly life. That is what makes heaven heaven. It is what makes it paradise. It is what makes heaven wonderful. You subtract that one thing from heaven and you have got hell. Knowing God and having favorable interaction with Him is the life of heaven, and that is something believers can enjoy in part even now. 
2) Not or having God’s wrath remain on you (Jn.3:36)
Unbelievers can’t.

John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

When a person does not have faith in the Son of God he does not have eternal life. What he has instead is the wrath of God remaining on him. 
Unbelievers like to imagine that they are on good terms with God. When they need something they pray to Him as though they and God were on speaking terms. And they are very often oblivious to the fact that on the other end of the line is a God who is furiously angry with them, and who detests their prayers. And that wrath remains on them all the time. It is only eternal life that escapes that. The life of heaven is a life of knowing God – made possible by the removal of God’s wrath against you.
3) Having light & not walking in darkness (Jn.8:12) 

John 8:12 I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

The life we have in Christ is a life of walking in light rather than in darkness. The Holy Spirit turns on the lights so true things seem true to you, and beautiful things are attractive to your soul. And it is clear to you that the wrong way is wrong, and the right way becomes both obvious and desirable. 
When you do not have life in Christ you can make guesses about what is true and guesses about which way is the best way for you to go in an important decision, but really you are just walking in the dark. Your guesses could be way off and there is no guarantee that the direction you take will be good. In fact, it is actually even worse than that. Not only could your guesses be wrong, but they will be wrong, because when the lights are off, the desires of your heart are messed up. And so you are guaranteed to choose the wrong way because you desire the wrong things.
Natural life and eternal life are not two parallel roads where the only difference is one comes to an end and the other keeps going forever. The path you take when you have eternal life goes in a totally different direction.
Natural life is headed toward death – it declines. 
Eternal life increases and moves toward more and more abundant life.
Natural life is a road that eventually dead ends – and drops off the edge of a cliff.
Eternal life is a road that moves you closer and closer to better and better destinations.
Every mile you travel on the road of eternal life is progress toward something good.
Every mile you travel on the road of natural life is just another mile closer to hell.
When you walk in the light, not only is your destination different, but the journey itself is different. Think of the last time you were in your car, on your way to go somewhere that you were really excited to get to. Now think of the last time you were in your car and you were hopelessly lost and going nowhere. The difference in the two was not just the destination – there is a difference in the quality of the trip. There is great joy in the certainty that you are moving toward wonderful things in life - no matter what it looks like out the window of your vehicle. When you have eternal life you have joy each morning when you wake up, because you know you are on a path that leads closer to the presence of God. You have joy when you are at work and when you get home and when you go to bed, because the lights are on and you can see that you are going the right way and moving closer and closer to tomorrow’s grace.

4) Having the hunger and thirst of your soul perpetually satisfied (Jn.4:14, 6:27)

John 4:14 whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 6:27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life

Eternal life means having the hunger and thirst of your soul perpetually satisfied. When you have the life from heaven there is never a moment when you cannot have satisfaction of the deepest longings of your soul. Even in the midst of the most painful suffering, a profound experience of the presence of God is enough to give you a joy that eclipses all your pain.
And that is another thing unbelievers do not have. When you look to something besides God for your joy, at any given time that thing may or may not be available. And even when it is available it may not satisfy your soul. The billionaire who gets bored with life, and gets on a jet and goes to Hawaii, might arrive there only to discover that he isn’t in the mood for Hawaii. He is not in the mood for anything. Sometimes his travel or recreation satisfies, but other times it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, there is nothing he can do.
He finds deep down inside a craving to be loved. And sometimes his friends or wife fulfill that longing, but other times they do not. Sometimes eating at a great restaurant makes him happy – other times it does nothing for him. And when the pleasures of this world do not satisfy the hunger and thirst pangs in his soul, there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.
But the man or woman who has 24/7 access to the Spring of living water – eternal life from the Son of God, that person can find joy and contentment and delight at any time and in any circumstance.
Eternal life is a life of eating and drinking spiritual food and drink. Jesus used the images of food and drink not just to illustrate satisfaction, but also sustenance. What food and drink does to your physical body God’s presence does to your spirit.
God gave us physical life as an illustration of spiritual life. So think of the components of physical life. When a person is dying physically, what is it that they are losing? They are losing health, strength, energy, perception, sensitivity, growth, liveliness – those are all components of life. The more of those you have the more alive you are but when you are in the process of losing them you are in the process of dying. And spiritual life is having those things in the spiritual realm.
In the sermon on 1 John 1:2 I talked at some length about what it means to have spiritual health and strength and energy and perception and liveliness, etc. For now I will just say that when you have all that, that is when life is as it should be. That is when you have fullness of joy, and hope. That is when you are able to accomplish great things in the Kingdom of God. And it is when virtue flows out of your life – especially love.

1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. 

When you are connected to the source of eternal life the result is love.
It is possible to have physical life and at the same time be dead spiritually. 1 Timothy 5:6 speaks of people being dead even while they live. To be dead physically means your body does not work. To be dead spiritually means your sprit does not work. You can show the glory of God to a spiritually dead person and he will just yawn. It means nothing to him. You can open the Bible and show the wisdom of God to an unbeliever and it will seem to him like foolishness. You can expose a non-Christian to the Spring of living water who satisfies the cravings of the soul of man, and he will have no attraction to Him and he will not drink a drop. You can show him the wonders of the Kingdom of God and he will be more impressed with a good ball game. You can introduce him to the Creator Himself, and he will have no interest. That is what it means to be dead spiritually.
But spiritual life is the opposite of all that. When you have eternal life you have the ability to
- appreciate the glory of God and 
- to love the wisdom of God in His Word and 
- to drink deeply and be satisfied by the Spring of living water and 
- to know and love the Lord your God.
5) Living forever (Jn.3:16, 10:28, 5:24, 6:40, 54)
And then, finally, those who have eternal life will enjoy all of these things – forever.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish

You will never perish. You will not perish because you will not be condemned on Judgment Day.

John 5:24 I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. 

Instead of perishing in hell you will be resurrected with the righteous.

John 6:40 everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Those who do not have eternal life will perish. They will live a pointless, worthless, meaningless life, then die, face condemnation on Judgment Day, and spend eternity in hell being punished for their sin. But if you have eternal life you bypass all of that. You live a meaningful life that is going somewhere, then on the last day you will rise from the dead, receive a glorified, immortal, glorious body, and enjoy all of the benefits of heavenly life, unhindered, with God forever. All of that is eternal life.
The Agent of Eternal Life
Life in the Son alone
And what determines whether you have eternal life or not? – your heart’s reaction to the testimony of God about His Son. You must have faith in the Son of God in order to have life because Jesus Christ is the only source of life. The assurance of eternal life comes only when you are connected to the Agent of eternal life. Just listen to how much John wants to emphasize that.

11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 

In the opening words of the book John called Him the Word of Life, and then here he repeats over and over – verse 11: life is in the Son, verse 12: he who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life, verse 13: you who believe in the Son of God have eternal life. We need to understand that Agent of eternal life is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Having the Son

12 He who has the Son has life

Think of what it means to have the Son – for Him to be yours. Do not think of life as being from Jesus. It is not from Him – it is in Him. It is not just a gift that He air mails from heaven. It is something that is characteristic of Him alone, so that if you are connected to Him you have it and if you are not connected to Him you do not have it – kind of like electricity coming from a battery. If you lose connection with the battery you have no electricity.
Eternal life is the very life of Christ and you experience it only through your connection to Him. If I walked up to my wife and said, “You know what Tracy – I really like the feeling I have when I’m around you, and I so enjoy your company and companionship, and I really treasure your love and affection toward me, and I can’t get enough of your smile and the sound of your laughter, it all just makes me feel so good… I’m leaving to go overseas, and I would like you to take all that and wrap it up and give it to me as a gift while I’m on my trip overseas.” She would say, “I can’t do that.” Those things are not gifts she can give me separate from giving me herself. The only way I can enjoy any of those things is by being with her and enjoying her.
And that is how eternal life is. It is part of the life of Christ, and the only way to experience it is by being joined to Him. So how is that done? What do you have to do to be joined with Him? To have assurance of eternal life you need to be connected to the Agent of eternal life. But what do you have to do to gain access to the Agent of eternal life? John tells us four times.
The Access to Eternal Life

10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. 

13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 

Access to eternal life (or more properly – access to the Agent of eternal life), is by faith. You are joined to the Son of God and receive eternal life from that union when you believe.

“In himself” – the testimony becomes part of you 
And it is critical that we understand that there is a lot more to believing than just agreeing to the facts about Jesus. 

10 Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in himself. 

Believing is what happens when the Holy Spirit turns on the lights, you see the truth and the beauty of what God has said about His Son in the gospel, and as a result it penetrates deep into your heart. The idea is the testimony goes inside and actually becomes a part of you – like food.
You cannot tell by looking, but 41 years ago I weighed less than 10 pounds. Now there is a whole lot more of Darrell Richard Ferguson in the world than there was then. Then there was less than 10 pounds, and now there is almost 180, and that entire 180 pounds is me – it is all me. Where did it all come from? Where did the extra 170 pounds come from? Well, a lot of it used to be Big Macs. A fair amount of it used to be caffeine-free Pepsi. And now it is heart tissue and lung tissue and brain matter and bone and skin. It used to be food – I ingested it, and it became part of me.
That is what God’s testimony does when you believe it. It enters inside you and becomes part of you. Except instead of it being transformed (like my body does with food), you become transformed to resemble it. It starts to make up who and what you are.
There are some things you claim to believe but they are not really a part of who you are. Unless someone reminds you of them at the point of your decision making, they don’t really figure in much to the way you think or feel or act or decide. But there are other beliefs you have that are so much a part of your heart and soul that they determine even involuntary responses. Most of your reactions to things are involuntary responses – you don’t give them any thought. Those kinds of automatic, knee-jerk responses are determined by what you really believe deep down inside.
If you turn around and notice you are one inch away from a 100 foot drop, you scramble to get away from that ledge, or to get into a position where you are not in danger of falling. You do that without even thinking, because deep down inside you is a belief in gravity, combined with a deep-seated belief in the frailty of your body, plus a rock-solid, unshakable confidence in the hardness of the ground below. You do not stand there and do a bunch of calculations multiplying out the acceleration of a freefall for 100 feet and the force of impact in comparison to the strength of your bones. No, you instantly scramble because your belief in gravity has penetrated so deep into your soul that it dictates even involuntary reactions.
You have some beliefs about your spouse and about certain other people that work the same way. There are things about that person that you are so sure of that they control even some of your involuntary reactions.
You can tell that you have received the testimony of God and of the Holy Spirit about Jesus Christ when the truth of the gospel penetrates to the very core of your soul so that more and more of your involuntary reactions to various things are driven by the truth of the gospel, so that your reactions to things – emotional responses, decisions, evaluations – are inexplicable apart from the gospel.

“Believe in” – Total commitment 
And again, faith is more than just being persuaded of facts. Being persuaded of the truth is half of it, but the other half is trusting in a Person. Notice that little word “in” in verses 10 and 13. We must believe in the Son of God. We know what it means to believe a person. A person tells you something, you accept it as true – you are believing that person. But what does it mean to believe in a person? That phrase comes from Genesis 15:6.

Abram believed in Yahweh, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

Abram entrusted his life to the Lord and followed Him. Believing in Christ includes commitment of your life to Him. You can believe a set of facts about Christ in your mind, but you can only believe in Christ on your knees. It is impossible to believe in Christ while remaining in a rebellious posture. That is why it is such a serious error when people teach that repentance is not required for salvation. You are not saved by repentance, but where there is no repentance there is no faith, because true faith bows the knee before Christ, and takes your whole life and lays it on the altar before God.
Anyone who has never done that has never been saved. When people say, “Oh, I became a Christian when I was nine, but I didn’t give up my life to Him until age 26,” – the person who says that does not understand faith. What happened when they were nine may have been something that was very heartfelt and earnest, but if it did not involve a complete entrusting of their life to the Lord Jesus Christ then it was not salvation.

Conclusion
What is your verdict on the testimony of God about His Son? Do you believe? Is your heart so persuaded by the evidence that the truth of the gospel has become a part of your very soul, so that your reactions to the events of life are determined by your belief in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you entrusted your life into His hands as the supreme authority in your life, so that nothing in this whole world is more important to you than His will? If so, then you have cause to sing for joy, because God’s verdict on your verdict is that you have eternal life.

Victory by Faith: Part 5 Praying for a Sinning Brother 5:14-17

Summary: The main point of this passage is clear – God listens to our prayers. This follows on the discussion of eternal life because prayer is a key part of life (personal interaction with God). This is where all our confidence gets put to work. John’s point about prayer is that it shows our special relationship with God. Prayer + Love = Intercession. We pray for sinning brothers to be given life (sin disrupts the aspects of life and puts you on the road toward death). Pray hard for the sinning brother! The purpose of the system of intercession is so God can validate us as His favored servants.
Introduction
The relationship of Intercession (Special access to God)
Listening
A favorable hearing
God doesn’t listen to everyone’s prayers
What does this have to do with eternal life?
Life is personal interaction with God
Prayer = Privileged access
God’s eagerness to answer our prayers
From God
Blank check?
God’s eagerness to answer is for His glory
The Recipients of Intercession (Sinning brothers)
Prayers of love
Praying for life
Sin disrupts life
Sin puts you on the road toward death
You need help to get off
Life & death prayer
How to pray for life
When? Any sin
The Reason for Intercession (to demonstrate God’s favor)
Old Testament Theology of Intercession (only VIP’s can intercede)
Abraham
Moses
Samuel
Job
Jesus
Conclusion
Our VIP status

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked from him. 16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not end in death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not end in death. There is a sin that ends in death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not end in death. 18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. 19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Introduction
This passage of Scripture is probably the most theologically difficult passage in the book. What on earth is the sin ending in death? And how do you know for sure if someone has committed it? And why is it necessary to pray for God to grant life to a brother in Christ who already has eternal life? There are some very difficult questions that arise from this passage. However, even with the presence of those difficulties, the main point of the passage is actually crystal clear. No matter where you come down on all those other questions, surely we can all agree on the main point.

The relationship of Intercession (Special access to God)
The point of the passage is – we know for sure that God will listen to our prayers.

14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked from him. 16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not end in death, he should pray and God will give him life.

Would you agree that main point is not hard to see? We know He will hear us. This entire section – from v.13 all the way to the end of the book, is all about things we know for sure. If you just underline the word “know” in those verses you will see what I mean.

13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
15 And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked from him.
18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin
19 We know that we are children of God
20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding

John closes out his book by reminding us of the things that we know for sure. We live in uncertain times, and there is not much out there that you can be very sure of. You do not know what is going to happen to the economy, you do not know for sure what the future of your marriage is going to be, you do not know how long your job is going to last, or how long your health is going to last. You do not know what is going to happen with your kids, or if you are going to end up in a nursing home someday, or when or how you are going to die. You do not even know who is going to win the Super Bowl (although some of you think you know – you do not). You do not even know what is going to happen five minutes from now. 
We live our whole lives on probabilities, because there is hardly anything we know for sure. But in the closing verses of his epistle John gives us a whole list of things that we can know with absolute certainty. Ours is the age of post-modernism, which is marked by a hostility against the very idea of knowing anything for sure – especially if it is about God or morality. Even Evangelical scholars are embracing what they call a “hermeneutic of humility” in which they say we cannot really be sure we even know what the Bible means by what it says. And against that drone of the world pushing everyone into perpetual doubt the voice of God rings out in 1 John 3 with “We know…we know…we know…” 
There are six things John says we know for sure. And one of them is that God listens to your prayers. There are a whole lot of things that God is content for you not to know. Most of the facts in the universe you do not know, and God is just fine with that. All those uncertainties I mentioned – it is just fine for you not to know any of those things. But one thing God wants you to know for sure is that He listens to your prayers.
Listening
And when the Bible says that God listens – that does not just mean He hears the sounds you are making.

A favorable hearing
It means He gives them a favorable hearing. When you talk to someone and that person does not receive what you said, and then someone else asks you about the conversation you say, “Aw – I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen to me.” When we say that, we do not mean the guy stuck his fingers in his hears so he could ntt hear the sounds that were coming out of your mouth. What we mean is he did not give you a favorable hearing. He did not allow his heart to be swayed or influenced by what you said. When God says He will listen to one person and not listen to another person, that is the kind of listening it is talking about. He will listen with interest and with willingness and eagerness to respond favorably. That is one of the rare certainties that we have in this life. That is the point of this passage. It is not a big deal to me whether you agree or disagree with my take on the sin ending in death. What is a big deal is that you realize joy over the fact that you know that God listens to your prayers.

God does not listen to everyone’s prayers
And if that does not bring you any special joy it may be that you fail to realize what an amazing thing it is for God to listen to a human being. There are a lot of folks who assume God listens to everyone’s prayers. And if that is true then it is really no big deal that He listens to yours. But God does not listen to everyone’s prayers. In fact He does not listen to the vast majority of people’s prayers. Most people’s prayers do not receive a favorable hearing in heaven.

Proverbs 28:9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.

When a person is in a place in his life where he is not really listening to God’s Word – God not only turns a deaf ear to his prayers – He hates that person’s prayers. 

Proverbs 15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable to the LORD, but the prayer of the upright is His delight.
Proverbs 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.
Psalm 34:15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 the face of the LORD is against those who do evil
Psalm 66:18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened

If we arrogantly think that God has some sort of duty to listen to any and every prayer that is offered by anyone, then it will not be any big deal to us to learn that He listens to our prayers. But when you understand that the Lord only listens to a tiny percentage of the people’s prayers - only a tiny fraction of the human beings on this planet can have their prayers heard in heaven, that should cause great joy in the hearts of that tiny fraction.
Prayer = Privileged access 
When you write about prayer there are a whole lot of different angles you can take. You could focus on how to pray, or what to pray for, or why pray, or the role of faith in prayer, or how to get prayers answered, or the will of God in prayer, etc. But for John, the main significance of prayer that he focuses on in this book is the privileged relationship with God that prayer is based on. What is most amazing about prayer is the fact that it shows us to be highly favored in God’s sight. Just the fact that you can come to God in prayer and have Him listen shows you to be one of His rare, favored inner circle.
That is the way it was in the Gospel of John too. The main significance of prayer is the fact that it shows special, unique access to God. In John 11:42 Jesus pointed to the fact that the Father always heard His prayers as evidence of Jesus’ special, favored status before God the Father as His Son. The uniqueness of the way the Father listened to Jesus’ prayers demonstrated the uniqueness of their relationship.
And the same is true for us. So for John, whatever God gives you in answer to your prayers is really secondary. What is primary is the fact that God listened to you. If your friend came to you and said, “Guess what – I called George W Bush and asked him if it would be OK if I stayed the weekend at his ranch, and he said, ‘sure – you bet,” you probably would not respond by saying, “Wow – you’re staying at a ranch?” More likely your response would not have anything to do with the ranch. You would say, “You have the sort of relationship with the former President of the United States that he can ask for favors like that?” Getting to stay at a nice ranch is secondary.
You know those MasterCard “priceless” commercials? They go through the cost of various things, and then finally get to the most important thing and instead of giving a price they say, “priceless.” If John made one of those commercials about prayer he would list a bunch of things and then at the end say, “Being listened to favorably by God – priceless.” 
Blank check?
Does this mean God will never say no? No. We talked about this back in 3:21-22, which is another one of those blank check type passages. When I preached on that passage I talked at length about how to harmonize the passages that say get whatever we ask with those passages that put conditions on answered prayer. If you want to look into that you can get that sermon on 3:21-22. I am not going to repeat it all now. I will just say this – it is not John’s purpose here to overturn all that the rest of Scripture says about prayer. In order for your prayers to be answered you must pray
- in Jesus’ name (Jn.14:13). If you feel that you deserve to get an answer then you are praying in your name rather than Jesus’ name.
- with persistence (Lk.18:1), faith (Jas.1:5,6), and wholehearted seeking (Jer.28:12). 
- You must be remaining in Christ – walking in regular fellowship and personal interaction with Him (Jn.15:7).
- You must pray with an unselfish motive (Jas.4:3). If you pray for anything that Is not for the purposes of the Kingdom of God and the glory of His name, do not expect God to hear that prayer.
- And you must pray with boldness & confidence (1 Jn.3:21), righteousness (Jas.5:16), and especially love (Pr.21:13).
John is not negating any of that here. God is not a vending machine that has to cough up whatever you want just because you demanded it. Prayer is still prayer. And it is still possible that you could ask for something and not get it just because you did not pray fervently enough, or did not have the proper boldness or because of unrighteousness in your life, etc. John’s point here is that generally speaking, as Christians we are in a special relationship with God that gives us immediate access to Him and a favorable ear.
God’s eagerness to answer is for His glory
When you see conditions in Scripture for answered prayer, do not look at those as escape clauses to let God off the hook, as if He were looking for excuses to say no. It is just the opposite. He is looking for excuses to say yes. Scripture paints a picture in which God is eager to answer our prayers. He loves doing it. You have certain activities that you especially enjoy – God especially enjoys answering your prayers. He delights in it because it brings Him glory.

Isaiah 30:18 The LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. 

He is like a parent who went out and bought His child some really expensive gift that he knows his kid will absolutely love. And so he rushes right home to give it to him right away, but as soon as he gets home his child does something that requires some severe discipline. And so the parent is all disappointed because he was so eager to give that gift, but now he can’t because he does not want to reinforce that bad behavior. So he is all excited to give it the next day, but that day the kid runs away from home and is gone for several days. So that parent has to wait a little longer. Finally he spots a moment when the child is not doing anything that makes it a bad idea to give him the gift, and so he quickly seizes the opportunity and gives it to him.
God is like that with our prayers. He is eager to answer, and unless we are doing something that would make it a bad thing for Him to answer, He cannot wait to give us what we are asking for. God is like a sprinter in the starting blocks, and our prayers cause Him to explode into action on our behalf. He loves to do that because the finish line of His sprint is His own glory.

From Him
Notice those last two words of v.15.
15 And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked from him.

When you pray and you get the thing you asked for, the point John is making here is that when that happens you can know for sure that you got that thing from God. That is crucial, because if you do not understand that you will tend to assume you would have gotten it anyway. You say, “Dear God, please keep me safe on this trip.” And then when you arrive safely you do not have a lot of gratitude in your heart because you have a sense that you probably would have arrived safely anyway. So the prayer did not really do anything. It might have added a little insurance at the margin, but for the most part you do not have a sense that your safe trip was a product of God responding to your prayer.
How can you know for sure if God would have done it anyway even if you had not prayed? You can’t, but that does not matter. What matters is when you ask God for something and it happens. Receive that as something that came from God. It does not matter if He would have done it anyway. What matters is you asked Him to do something, He listened, and was agreeable to what you asked. The point that John is making is that when you get what you pray for, you can know for sure that you got it from God. If one of my kids asks me for a certain gift for Christmas, and I get it for them, what does it matter if I was thinking of getting that gift anyway? What matters is I gave it to them. If the thing you prayed for would have happened anyway – even then it would have been from God.

The Recipients of Intercession (Sinning brothers)
So God is eager to answer our prayers, and especially the kind of prayers John is speaking of here – prayers of intercession.
Prayers of love
Intercession is when you pray for someone else. When you step into that gap between God and someone else and speak to God on that person’s behalf. Intercession is what happens when you combine prayer with love. If you talk to God about what is on your heart, and your heart is full of love for your brother, then you will talk to God about your brother. If there is no intercession in your prayer life that means you either do not have any love for your brothers or you do not believe God listens to prayer.
And that is especially true when there are life and death issues at stake. If you do not pray for someone who is facing death that is really a cold heart. And in v.16 John is talking about a brother who is facing death.

16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not end in death, he should pray and God will give him life.

Now the big discussion about that verse is always, “What is the sin that ends in death?” We’ll get to that, but do not let that distract you from the rest of what John is saying.

16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin … he should pray and God will give him life.

In order for that brother to survive you have to pray for God to give him life. Why is it necessary to ask God to give life to a brother? If John has made anything clear in this section it is that all brothers and sisters in Christ have eternal life. So why would we pray for God to grant life to a brother who already has it? Especially since the only thing we know about this particular brother is that he has NOT committed the sin that ends in death! If he has eternal life, and he has not committed the sin unto death, isn’t it redundant to ask God to give him life?
Praying for life
Sin disrupts life
Evidently, committing sin does something that disrupts spiritual life. The implication of what John is saying is this: it is possible to have heavenly life – life from God – life that belongs to the age to come – true knowledge of God; is it possible to have that and then for it to be disrupted by sin. All sin interrupts our experience of spiritual life – the life of heaven. Remember – the word translated “eternal” does not primarily mean “unending.” What it means is “characteristic of the age to come.” So eternal life refers to the kind of life we will enjoy in the age to come – heavenly life. And Jesus said in Jn.17:3 that heavenly life is all about knowing God. And that knowledge of God is disrupted in this life when we fall into sin. Sin interrupts our fellowship with God, spoils our intimacy with Him, puts distance between us and God, causes God to turn His face away, diminishes His willingness to hear our prayers, dampens our delight in Him, clouds our ability to see His glory, darkens our understanding of His Word, grieves the Holy Spirit…

Sin puts you on the road toward death
And not only that, but sin also places us on the path that leads toward death. The closest parallel that I know of in the Bible to this passage is at the end of the book of James.

James 5:19 My brothers…

Who would you say James is talking to here? I would say – brothers – the same group John speaks of in 1 Jn.5:16. In both cases we are dealing with brothers in the faith.

19 My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins. 

When a Christian falls into sin it puts him on a road that is headed toward death. But what sort of death? Physical death? Is the point of all this intercession to prevent brothers from dying physically? Let’s go back to 1 John and let John answer that question for us. What kind of life is John talking about in the context? John has mentioned life 12 other times in 1 John (besides 5:16), and every one of them is clearly a reference to spiritual life. John has mentioned death two other times in the book, and both of those are clearly a reference to spiritual death.

1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.

So the context calls for us to take this as spiritual life and death not physical life and death. When you see a brother in Christ commit a sin, you should pray for him and beseech God to have mercy on him and spare his spiritual life. And if you do that God will hear your prayer (because you are highly favored by God and therefore have great influence with Him), and the brother will repent and get off the track that leads toward spiritual death. And when that happens, according to James 5, you have saved him from death.
Wherever you stand on the whole debate over eternal security and apostasy, you need to make sure your view on that does not cause you to ignore passages like this. Without question God has filled the New Testament with wonderful and delightful promises that He will preserve our faith and hold on to us. But the fact that He also warns us against falling means that the promises of preservation are not absolute in this life. And so however you sort out the tensions in your own mind (between the warnings and the promises) it is very important that you make sure you take the warning passages seriously. And God did not give us those so that we could come up with some interpretive trick to sweep them all under the rug of some theological system and not concern ourselves with them. When someone who deeply loves you gives you a stern warning you need to heed that warning. And so when God gives us passages like 1 John 5 and James 5 that speak of the possibility of brothers in Christ getting on the path toward spiritual death, that should get our attention.
Sin puts us on the road to death.

Romans 8:13 for if you live according to the flesh, you are about to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Jesus told a parable about the various reactions people have to the gospel (the Parable of the Soils). And in that parable Jesus said there are some who reject the gospel right from the start and never have any spiritual life. But there are others who hear it and receive it and the seed actually produces life for a time. But then either persecution or trouble or the worries of this life or the love of money come in and choke out the gospel and the plant dies.

You need help to get off
Sin puts us on the highway to death, and we need one another to help us get off that highway.

Hebrews 3:12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 

This is another huge reason why you should be in a small group, by the way. If you pray for your brother who is struggling with sin, and if you encourage him on a regular basis from Scripture, that will prevent him from developing a sinful, unbelieving heart that becomes hardened by sin’s deceitfulness and turns away from the living God, and it will cover over a multitude of sins and ultimately save him from spiritual death. If we are not praying like people’s lives depend on it, we do not understand prayer.

Life & death prayer
We need to be praying hard for each other. There is a lot at stake in this war. Things can go really, really bad, and so our prayers for one another should be earnest and intense and fervent - especially when it does not look like the person is repentant. Pray the way you pray when your little toddler drinks some poison and you call 911 and they say that if you make it to the hospital fast enough she might have a 10% chance of surviving - That kind of life or death praying.

1 Timothy 4:16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Timothy was saved already, and yet in order for him to ultimately be saved he had to watch over his life and doctrine closely. And so did Paul.

1 Corinthians 9:27 I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be rejected.

We are in a war against an enemy that is using live ammo. And so when our great Commander in this war tells us to take cover that is not the time to twist His words to apply to someone else so that we can set our minds at ease that there is no real danger. When He says take cover, take cover, because there is real danger. And when He says to cover your brother’s back, cover his back because if you do not, he could very well become a casualty. And when a brother is captured we need to carry out a serious rescue operation to save his life. Because Proverbs says the cords of sin will entangle him and ensnare him and drag him right down to the grave. (Pr.5:22,7:27) How many times do we see a brother sin and we respond by looking down on him, ridiculing him, despising him, gossiping about him, marginalizing him, giving up on him – everything but rescuing him?

How to pray for life 
So when you see a brother sin how should you pray? John says, “Pray that God would give him life” – all of the components of life from God that we have talked about. Enlightenment – so they can see the evil of what they are doing and the goodness of God’s way; Inclination of their hearts toward righteousness and away from evil; Strength to fight against the enemy; Motivation to seek hard after God; Personal interaction with God so the can receive grace from being in His presence, and that grace will enable them to overcome the sin; Faith – the ability to believe the Word of God and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ; All of those things are what will bring true repentance. And if he does not repent, he will continue on the road toward death.

When? Any sin
And when should you pray that way? What kind of sin is so severe and so grave and so serious and so threatening to a brother’s spiritual life that it should set off these kinds of prayers?

16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that is not toward death, he should pray and God will give him life. 

We have not answered the question of what a sin “toward death” is yet, but whatever it is – any other sin is a sin that should set off these kinds of prayer. Absolutely every sin except that one should set off this kind of praying.
And then John hastens to remind us…

17 All unrighteousness is sin

Anytime you ever see a brother or sister in Christ do something that is not righteous, you should pray and ask God to spare them from ultimate apostasy, because all sin puts you on the road to apostasy. That is not to say all sin is apostasy. You do not lose your salvation every time you sin. But every sin does put you on a road that leads away from God. And that road will ultimately take you right into ultimate, spiritual death unless you do a U-turn and repent. Repentance is getting off the road that goes away from God and getting back on the road that goes toward God. And no matter how small the sin, every sin is an on-ramp onto the highway that leads away from God. So what John is saying is, “Every time you see someone get on that on-ramp, pray that they would get off.” And they will not be able to get off unless God grants them repentance, and so that is why we need to pray.

The Reason for Intercession (to demonstrate God’s favor)
Before we finish let’s ask ourselves one last question – Why? Why has God set up a system of intercession? If He wants to bless us why not just bless us directly? Why sit around and wait until someone prays for us?
Old Testament Theology of Intercession (only VIP’s can intercede)
The answer to that question emerges when you study the history of intercession in the Old Testament. 

Abraham
The first instance of intercession I know of is in Genesis 20. When Abraham moved to the Negev he told king Abimelech that Sarah was his sister, and Abimelech then took her into his harem. And In Gn.20:3 God says, “You are a dead man, because she is a married woman.”

Genesis 20:6 I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. 7 Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. 

Why not just let him live anyway? Why does Abraham have to pray for him? It was to show Abimelech how much God favored Abraham. Verse 7 says the reason God would listen was because Abraham was a prophet. That is how intercessory prayer is introduced to us in the Bible.

Moses
The next great intercessor in Scripture is Moses. Each time God ends one of the plagues he does it through Moses’ praying. More than once Moses has to pray for the nation of Israel to save them from being destroyed by God.

Samuel
The third great intercessor we see in Scripture is Samuel. In ch.7 the people finally repent of their sins and turn back to the Lord, but even then they still need to have Samuel intercede for them in order to be rescued from the Philistines. (1 Sam.7:8) And Samuel was willing, because he knew it would be sin for him not to pray for them.

1Samuel 12:23 As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you. 
Why would it be such a sin for him to fail to pray for them? Lack of love? Surely that’s part of it, but there is a bigger reason than that.

1 Samuel 12:22 For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own.

You see, the reason God restores sinners is for the sake of His great name. If Samuel fails to intercede that will mean the death of all those people, and that would be a bad thing , but far worse than that is the fact that God’s name would be dishonored.
That was Moses’ motivation too. When God was going to destroy Israel Moses did not say, “God, do not do that. Think of how many people will suffer and die and how horrible that will be for them.” When God was going to destroy Israel for their sin in Ex.32 Moses interceded for them with the argument that if God destroyed them it would diminish His glory in the eyes of the nations.
The reason it would be such a horrendous evil for Samuel not to pray for those people was because God’s mercy and kindness to those people was for the sake of His great name. So however much Samuel cares about God’s great name, that is how earnestly he should pray for mercy for them. And however zealous God is for His own great name, that is how sure it is that He will hear those prayers.

Job
One more key intercessor in the OT is Job. In ch.1 we read that Job had a regular practice of interceding for his kids even when he did not know of any specific sin they had committed just in case. And then at the end of the book Job intercedes for his friends.

Job 42:8 So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.
Jesus
As you move through the rest of the OT you find more examples of various prophets God using prayer to step in between some sinner and death or judgment. So why is there such a thing as intercession? We asked that same question about Christ’s intercession back in ch.2 of 1 John. Why does Jesus need to intercede for us? Is God the Father more angry than God the Son? Are the first two members of the Trinity different - moving in different directions – the Father toward wrath and the Son resisting that and pushing back toward mercy? No. They are exactly the same in their nature and in their affections and their attitude toward us. The reason God forgives us and blesses us only through the intercession of Jesus is because He wants all of His blessing of us to be a favor to His Son. God the Father is extremely eager to bless us. But He is even more eager to honor His Son, so in order to honor His Son, and in order to show us how certain our being blessed is going to be, He tied our blessings to His favor for His Son.
Conclusion
And understanding that helps us understand why He blesses in response to intercession by certain especially favored people. One thing you will notice when you study intercession in the OT is that it is never just some average person who intercedes. It is always some big-shot spiritual VIP. Abraham, Moses, Samuel, the Prophets – only people with special access to God. You never just see average Joe’s interceding. 

Jeremiah 15:1 Then the LORD said to me: "Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! 

Why is it that only the big shots can intercede? It is because one of the purposes of intercession is for God to show how much He favors the one interceding. t is God’s way of saying, “This is my special man.” When God would only stop the plagues when Moses prayed for them to stop, He was showing that Moses was His chosen servant. It was the way the God showed how much He favored Moses.
That is why in the OT you only see intercession being offered by prophets. The only exception to that is Job. But even in Job’s case – even thought he was not a prophet, he was a man for whom God wanted to demonstrate His special favor. At the end of the book God wanted to make it clear that He approved of Job and not the friends. They were saying throughout the book that God was displeased with Job. And so God showed them they were wrong about that by making it so the friends could only be forgiven if Job prayed for them.
Our VIP status
Intercession can only be done by spiritual VIPs because the main purpose of it is to show how much God favors the one offering the intercession. Now, what does that tell you about the situation we have now in the Church? Listen again to what John says:

If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not end in death, he should pray and God will give him life. 

It is not just for prophets or patriarchs or kings. This privilege is given to any and every Christian. The OT teaches us that God only listens to spiritual VIPs when it comes to intercession. There are only special, select individuals who have this kind of sway with God. And if you are in Christ you are one of those special, select, spiritual VIPs who has that kind of influence with God in your prayers.
Do you realize the gravity of what John is saying here? What he is saying is, “When you see a brother fall into sin – you can pull a Moses.” If some brother provokes God’s anger, you can pull a Samuel on their behalf.” There are people out there about whom God is saying, “I will forgive you only if ______ prays for you” (fill in your name). 
Does that mean God listens to every Christian the same? I do not think so. The principle throughout Scripture – Old Testament and New, is that the more righteous a person is the more God listens to his or her prayers.

1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

That is why husbands are to make sure they are living with their wives in an understanding way – so that nothing will hinder their prayers. When you sin against your wife by not being gentle or understanding, that sin makes your prayers less effective. And so the more righteous the person is, the more effective their prayers. That is why James 5 tells us to go to the elders of the church for prayer when we really need help – because the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective.
But even though some Christians are more righteous than others, all Christians are righteous. We are righteous positionally because we are in Christ. And we are righteous in practice because God is sanctifying us. And so God desires to show His favor of us by listening to our prayers – especially our intercessory prayers.
What does this have to do with eternal life?
And it is important for us to see the connection this has with eternal life. John has been speaking about eternal life throughout most of this chapter. Starting back in v.6 John started giving us God’s testimony about His Son, and the testimony was eternal life is in His Son. 

12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.

So this section is all about eternal life. And now all of the sudden he’s talking about prayer.

Life is personal interaction with God
I do not think the discussion on prayer is a change of subject – we are still on the topic of eternal life. John’s theme throughout the book has been about personal relationship with God – knowing God, remaining in God, loving God, trusting in God, fellowship with God, having God, being in God, etc. That is what eternal life is – those kinds of relational interactions with God. That is eternal life – the life that belongs to the age to come – heavenly life. And when you understand that, the question of what prayer has to do with it is obvious. If eternal life is all about personal interaction with God, then what could be more central to the issue of eternal life than prayer?
And what has John’s purpose been? To give us testimony to prove the gospel so that we would be absolutely sure we have eternal life. And now that we are sure – now that we have all this confidence – what do we do with it?

14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 

We put our confidence to work in prayer. God says, “OK, I have given you favor with Me, now put it to work on behalf of one another.”

Benediction: Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Victory by Faith: Part 6 Satan Can’t Touch You, but Watch Out! 5:18-19

Summary: The sin ending in death is when a person’s fate is sealed. The only way we can know if that is the case is if they die in unbelief (and if we pray with wisdom God will no doubt keep us from wasting our prayers on people whose fate is sealed even though they are still alive). 
	Satan controls the world, but we have been delivered from his clutches, meaning we are delivered from unrepentant sin and from satanic attack. God protects us by limiting Satan and by working in us to will and to act. The promise of protection is neither absolute nor unconditional, but it is still a comfort because the conditions are good for us and are always possible. 

Introduction
Don’t Pray for the Dead
What is the sin ending in death?
What if the person is still alive?
Use Wisdom in Prayer
Don’t miss the main point
PROMISED PROTECTION FROM THE ENEMY
The benefits of the promise
Delivered from sin
Protected from harm
Guards our hearts
The Means of the Promise
God works in you to will and act
You are not passive
The Limitation of the Promise
Partial
Conditional
The Comfort of the Promise
The conditions are good
The conditions are possible
Conclusion

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked from him. 16 If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not end in death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not end in death. There is a sin that ends in death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not end in death. 
18 We know that anyone born of God does not sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot touch him. 
19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world lies in the evil one. 
20 But we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 
21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. 

Introduction
Last Sunday afternoon I was talking to Andrew & Danelle about the sermon and Danelle said, “You have a lot of explaining to do next Sunday.” And she is right – we left off last time with a lot of questions still unanswered. The flow of thought through chapter 5 has gone this way: Victory over the world comes by faith and to strengthen our faith so that we can have that victory, God has given us bombproof testimony about His Son. Your response to that testimony shows whether you are a child of God or not. If the testimony convinces you, put that confidence to work by praying for your brother when he sins. (If you do, then God will grant him life.) But that only applies to sins that do not end in death. And that is where we left off. The question we are faced with now is, “What is the sin ending in death?”, and how do you know for sure whether someone has committed it?
We also left ourselves with some other questions. I pointed out last time that if we are to pray for God to grant life to our brother who commits a regular sin, that implies that sinning any sin puts a person on a track that requires deliverance from death. And the reason we need to pray is because the danger is real.
But as soon as I preached about the danger being a real danger that brought up questions in the Q&A time about eternal security. When Danelle said I have a lot of explaining to do she was talking about verse 18. If the danger is as real as I made it out to be last week – if there really is a genuine need to pray for a sinning brother to be granted life, how do we explain verse 18?

18 We know that anyone born of God does not sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot touch him. 

How can we take John seriously when he says we need to pray for God to grant life to a brother if that brother is guaranteed to be safe? If Satan cannot touch him and the Son of God is protecting him, why is it so urgent for me to pray for him when he commits a sin? And for that matter, if Satan cannot touch him and the Son of God is protecting him, and it is really true that anyone born of God does not sin, why is John instructing us at all on what to do when we see him sin? What kind of protection would leave us in real danger?

Don’t Pray for the Dead
What is the sin ending in death?
We will start with the first question - “What is the sin the ends in death?” That phrase is pros thanaton. Thanaton means death; pros can mean “leading to” or it can mean “resulting in.” I think “resulting in” is the way John is using it here because this very passage makes it clear that every sin leads toward death. That is why verse 16 tells us to pray that God will grant the person life even when that person has not committed the sin that is pros death. Every sin leads toward death, but not every sin ultimately results in death.
John uses that exact same phrase in his Gospel.

John 11:4 When Jesus heard [that Lazarus was sick], he said, "This sickness is not pros thanaton.”

It is not going to result in death. Lazarus did die from the sickness, but that was only temporary. Jesus raised him from the dead so that death was not the final outcome of the illness. So the meaning of pros thanaton there seems to be that the sickness will not ultimately, finally, permanently end in death.
In John 11 the context was physical death and here the context is spiritual death. So what John is saying is, if you see a brother commit a sin, pray that God would grant that brother life, unless it is a sin that ends finally, ultimately, and permanently in spiritual death.
So what kind of sin does that? Some people have said, “The sin ending in death must be unbelief.” So then John would be telling us we do not need to pray for unbelievers. But we know from 1 Timothy 2 that that is not right.

1 Timothy 2:1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession … be made for everyone-- … 

3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

So we are to pray for the lost to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
Others might say, “Well maybe it is talking about the Jews who rejected Jesus.” But that would not fit with Romans 10:1.
Romans 10:1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

So we are to pray for the lost – both Jew and Gentile. So who is it that we are not supposed to pray for? Someone else might say, “Well, maybe it means not to pray for those who are especially hostile toward Christianity.” But Jesus said…

Matthew 5:44 pray for those who persecute you

Luke 6:28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

The people crucifying Jesus were pretty hostile, but Jesus prayed…

Luke 23:34 "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." 

The people stoning Steven were hostile but Steven…

Acts 7:60 fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." 

Could it refer to those who abandon the faith?

2 Timothy 4:16 At my first defense … everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them.

Paul’s prayer was that their desertion of him, which was tantamount to deserting the gospel, not be held against them. So Paul interceded even for deserters.
Maybe the sin ending in death refers to the sin of publicly denying Christ. No – Peter did that, and Jesus prayed for him.

Luke 22:32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

We are starting to run out of options. What’s left? Is there any other place in the Bible where God instructs someone not to intercede for someone? Yes. God said that to Jeremiah three times. In chapters 7, 11, and 14 God told Jeremiah, “Don’t pray for this people – I won’t listen to you.”

Jeremiah 15:1 Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! 

For centuries God had been patient. He kept giving them more and more time to repent, and kept calling them back, and rescuing them out of trouble, and sending them prophets. But they rejected the prophets, rejected God’s Word, and rejected God. And finally the time came when their fate was sealed. Finally God made up His mind and revealed to Jeremiah that they were not going to repent, so intercession would be a waste of breath. They had sinned a sin that was going to end finally, ultimately, and irrevocably in their destruction.
Once God makes His final determination, there is no place for intercession. Remember verse 14?

14 if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

For God to hear our prayer it must be according to His plan. If He has already revealed that a person’s fate is sealed, then praying for a different outcome is not according to His will. So then how do you know if a person has come to that point? How do you know if a person’s final, ultimate fate is sealed for good? The only way I know of is if the person dies in unbelief. I do not know of any other way you could know for sure that someone’s sin has resulted in ultimate, final, irrevocable spiritual death except if they die in unbelief (unless you were a prophet). There is one other place where Jesus spoke of a sin resulting in spiritual death.

John 8:24 if you do not believe that I AM, you will indeed die in your sins.

That is the sin ending in death.
When a person dies in unbelief there is no use in praying for that person anymore. Our Roman Catholic friends teach that when a person dies he goes to Purgatory, and while he is there he can benefit from your prayers on his behalf. That is a false doctrine. There is no Purgatory, and once a person dies his ultimate, eternal fate is sealed forever and absolutely nothing can be done to change it.
What if the person is still alive?
But what is the person is still alive, and you do not know for sure whether their final fate is sealed or not? What if you accidentally pray for someone whose fate is sealed? Is that a sin? Notice that John does not actually explicitly prohibit praying for the person who has sinned a sin resulting in death. He just says, “When I tell you to pray and God will answer I am not talking about cases like that.” If someone has sinned a sin ending in death and that person’s fate is sealed, but you are not aware of that so you go ahead and pray for the person, you are not sinning by doing that, but God will still not answer that prayer.
Use Wisdom in Prayer
So how do you know who to pray for? Just use wisdom. You do not have time to pray for everyone, so you have to pick and chose, right? You only have a certain amount of time you can spend in prayer, which means every moment you spend praying for one person is a decision not to pray for anyone else during that moment.
So you have to use wisdom. Are there times when wisdom would call you not to pray for someone because your prayer time would likely be better spent praying for someone else? Of course – otherwise you would have to pray for every person at every moment. So if there is someone whose fate is sealed and for whom God no longer wants you to pray, surely we can trust God to work through that decision-making process to prevent us from praying for someone like that.
But is there ever a time when we should look at a person who is still alive and say, “That person is beyond hope – I know for sure that he has committed the sin ending in death”? Not that I know of.
Don’t miss the main point
So that is my understanding of the meaning of the sin ending in death. And if you are not convinced, study it on your own. But when you do that, remember – as you wade through all the endless arguments and all the various theories, in all the buzz and hubbub over what the sin ending in death is, the main point of the passage tends to get lost. Do not lose sight of the fact that the comment about not praying for someone who has committed the sin ending death is a side comment. But John’s main point is really very clear: God will answer your prayer when you pray for Him to give life to the brother who has committed a regular sin.

PROMISED PROTECTION FROM THE ENEMY
And that point raised a few eyebrows last week, because the implication is that the brother who commits a regular sin is in some danger. And saying that we are in some kind of danger brings up a real problem, because we have been saved – delivered, rescued, which means we are safe and secure in Christ. (What else could “rescued” mean if not “brought to a place of safety” or “delivered from danger”?) John has spoken throughout the book about how we are delivered from sin and have overcome the evil one. But on the other hand he also said that he was writing to warn us lest we go astray. So it is fitting that John would address the tension between security and danger in the closing section of the book. 
All John’s talk in this book about victory and overcoming is the language of warfare. John is very concerned that we never forget that we are in a war that has two distinct sides. It is very much an “us against them” situation. Look down at verse 19.

19 We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the evil one.

The devil controls this world and all the people in it. 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls Satan the god of this age. Ephesians 2:2 calls him the ruler of the power of the air. He is in charge of the system of evil that John refers to as “the world.” He has control over all unbelievers.
That is why the world is as bad as it is. Pretty much everyone in the world agrees that love and kindness and honesty and integrity are good things, and lying and stealing and murder and rape, etc. are bad things. And they have been trying to bring about more of the good and less of the bad for thousands of years, without any success. They come up with new laws and new legal systems, they try more and more education, different parenting techniques, better schools, psychology, medications, political programs, they try financial incentives and every kind of social experiment imaginable, and they keep trying and trying and trying and it has been thousands of years now and still the world is not one bit more upright morally than it ever has been since the flood. In fact, if anything, it is worse. The amount of evil in this world is absolutely staggering. Why? It is because there is a powerful, evil being who has a stranglehold on the affections and understanding and beliefs and actions of every unbeliever in the world. The whole world lies in the evil one – they are under his power and control, and there is absolutely nothing they can do to break free. He can get them to do whatever he wants.
But when you were saved, God snatched you out of Satan’s clutches. And now you are in a condition where there is both an element of safety and an element of danger.

The benefits of the promise
So let’s take a look at the extent of that safety. 
Delivered from sin

18 We know that anyone born of God does not sin

We have been delivered from sin. Anyone born of God does not sin. That does not mean we are perfect. John made it clear in chapter 1 that when he makes those kinds of blanket statements he was not talking about sinless perfection. Anyone who claims to be without sin is a liar. But to be a person who walks in the light you must confess your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your Advocate. So we found in chapter 1 that when John says that true Christians do not sin, he is talking about unrepentant sin.
I think you could illustrate it this way: Imagine that the ground represents sin and the sky is righteousness. A Christian is like a bird and an unbeliever is like a frog. And John is very categorical about where the frog lives and where the bird lives. Birds are in the sky and frogs are on the ground.
Are there exceptions? Of course. Sometimes birds land on the ground, and sometimes frogs jump up into the air. But when a bird comes down to the ground he stays there a short time and soon returns to the sky – either flying, or in his nest in a tree. When a Christian drops down and sins, he does not stay down there. He soon repents and returns to righteousness. He does not stay on the ground indefinitely. 
On the other hand, the unbeliever might make some attempts at righteous behavior, like a frog jumping into the air. But no matter how high he jumps, he always comes right back down to the ground. He is never truly in the sky.
So even though there might be some moments when a bird is on the ground and a frog is jumping, so that at that moment the frog is actually up higher than the bird, still it is correct to say that generally speaking birds live up there and frogs live down here and the exceptions are just that – exceptions to the rule. Christians are righteous and unbelievers are unrighteous and exceptions are temporary and are soon reversed.
So the first way that we have been rescued is we were rescued from a life of unrepentant sin. Do we have absolute, total victory over sin in this life? No, but we do have real victory. 
Protected from harm
Secondly, not only are we delivered from sin, we are also protected from Satan’s attacks.

18 We know that anyone born of God does not sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot touch him. 

The word “touch” in this context refers to harm, and it implies control over the person. So the idea is that Satan does not have the power to harm us at will because we are protected by the one who was born of God. (I believe that is referring to Jesus. We are called those who are born of God in the first part of the verse, and then Jesus is called the One who was born of God to show the union between us and Christ.) So our Elder Brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, guards us. 1 Peter 1:5 says we are shielded by God’s power. The devil is not free to just unload on us whatever attack he wants to. If he were allowed to do that we would not last one second. But the only way Satan can do anything to a believer is by first getting God’s permission. Satan unloaded on Job, but only after God granted him permission and even then God set limits on what Satan was allowed to do. When Satan wanted to sift Peter as wheat he first had to ask God.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. 

Guards our hearts
God is our refuge and shelter and fortress and protector. That is one of His most celebrated attributes in Scripture. So far I have counted almost 100 times God is spoken of that way just in the Psalms alone. And the promises of protection are both physical and spiritual. God not only guards our bodies, but also our hearts. That is part of the promise of the New Covenant. 

Ezekiel 11:19-21 "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. 20 Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

In the New Covenant God works on us from the inside to guard us from breaking the terms of the covenant. 
If you think that God just gave us all free will and then left us on our own to sink or swim, you need to take the promises of preservation more seriously. 

2 Corinthians 1:21 It is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. 

When you stand firm in Christ, that is God’s doing.

2 Tim 1:12 I … am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. 

God is not hogtied by our freewill. He is able to preserve our faith – even while leaving our will intact. And not only is He able, He is also willing.

1 Corinthians 1:8 He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. 

Over and over God promises to guard us from Satan and to protect us from sin and to cause us to be faithful.

The Means of the Promise
The benefits of the promise are we get delivered from sin and protected from Satan’s attacks, but what are the means of protection? How does God do it? - Two ways. One is that He puts limits on what Satan is allowed to do – like we saw with Job. And the other is God protects you from sin by working inside your heart.
God works in you to will and act

Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

He works inside your heart. He does not just throw you a life raft. He works in you to cause you to want to get in the life raft and stay in it.
You are not passive
You need to realize that because it is crucial that we understand that we are not passive in our own preservation. God preserves your faith by working in you to will and to act. That means if you are not willing and acting you are not being preserved. That is why it is no contradiction when Scripture speaks of God preserving you in some places and in other places speaks of you preserving yourself. 

18 We know that anyone born of God does not sin; the one who was born of God guards him, and the evil one cannot harm him. 

21 Dear children, guard yourselves from idols.

In verse 18 He is guarding us and in verse 21 we are guarding ourselves. 
Is it God who sanctifies us? Yes. Is it God who makes us godly? Yes. And yet…

1 Timothy 4:7 Train yourself to be godly.

1 Timothy 5:22 Keep yourself pure.

Colossians 3:8 Rid yourselves of [sin]

Romans 13:14 Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ

Jude 1:20 Build yourselves up in your most holy faith.

Is it Christ who presents you to God as one who is approved? Yes. However…

 2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God.

Who rescues you from the world?

Galatians 1:4 [He] gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age

It was Christ – however…

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: … to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world 

Who is it that purifies your heart? Is it not God? Yes – but…

1 Peter 1:22 you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth 

Isn’t it God who gives you a new heart and new spirit and who rids you of your sins? Yes, but…

Ezekiel 18:31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. 

What about salvation? Is it not God who saves us? Yes, but…

Acts 2:40 [Peter] pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."
1 Timothy 4:16 Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

And what about perseverance? Doesn’t God promise to keep you in His love? Yes, but…

Jude 1:21 Keep yourselves in God's love 

Does God guard us and keep us secure? Yes, but…

2 Peter 3:17 [Your] be on your guard so that you may not be carried away … and fall from your secure position.

So what are we to make of that? Does it mean that it is a collaboration where God does His half and we do our half? No. God does it, but the way He does it is by working in us and enabling us to do it. And your flesh resists, and God even promises to work in you to overcome that resistance. 
The question, however, is this – are those promises unconditional and absolute in this life? I think that question is fairly easy to answer. Just ask yourself these two questions: Does God promise to work in you to will and to act according to His good purpose? Yes. Do you always will and act according to God’s good purpose? No. How do you explain that? If God is working in me to will and act according to His good purpose and yet much of my willing and many of my actions go against His good purpose – how do we explain that?

The Limitation of the Promise
It is because there are limitations to the promise. The reason you and I still fail to will and act according to His good purpose in so many instances is because His promise to work in us to will and to act according to His good purpose is, in this life, neither absolute nor unconditional. He promises to work in me to will and to act according to His good purpose, and yet He at the same time also allows me to fail to will or act according to His good purpose. The promise was never intended to apply in an absolute sense in this life, and there are conditions attached to it.
Partial
When I say it is not absolute, that should not be a big shock to any of us, because so many of the benefits of our salvation are partial in this life. The fullness of salvation comes in heaven, and we only have partial foretastes of it now. We are living in an age when the benefits of the New Covenant are realized in part, but not in full. For example, in the Kingdom of the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, the Messiah would reign over all. Is that happening? Yes – but in a limited way. There is also such a thing, in this age, as disobedience to Christ. 
Theologians call this the “already but not yet” aspect of the Kingdom in this age. Is Christ reigning? Yes, He is already reigning in one sense, but not yet in the fullest, greatest way that He will after the Second Coming.
Are we delivered from sin? Already but not yet. We are already delivered from the penalty of sin, but not yet totally from the presence of sin. Are we transformed? Yes, we are already transformed to one degree, but not yet like we will be after the Resurrection when we receive our glorified bodies. Has Christ defeated Satan? Yes, He already defeated Him at the cross, but has not yet totally done away with him.
Jesus’ first coming was the inauguration of His Kingdom, but the fullness of it will not be in place until the Second Coming. So many of the benefits of the Kingdom we enjoy in a partial way now, but not in an absolute, total way like we will in heaven.
God’s promises to keep us from sin and to preserve our faith are real promises. But they are not absolute in this life. If they were, then we would never sin at all.
When God promises something as a general principle, and we turn it into an absolute with no possible exceptions – we are guilty of twisting God’s Word. Isn’t that the mistake Job’s friends’ made? They were assuming that God blesses the righteous and protects them from calamity. And He curses the wicked by subjecting them to calamity – that is known as the Retribution Principle. Is that true? Absolutely – the Bible says that 100 times. Their error was not in believing that. Their error was in turning it into an absolute rule that had no exceptions. And the book of Job teaches us that there are exceptions to the Retribution Principle. Some of God’s promises are absolute – even in this life. But many of them are not.
Conditional
Secondly, many of the promises in Scripture are conditional – even though all the conditions are not mentioned every time the promise is mentioned. Let me give you an example.

1 John 3:21-22 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

It says as long as our hearts do not condemn us God will give us what we pray for. Does that mean that is the only condition for answered prayer? No.

1 John 5:14 If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

To have your prayers answered you need to meet both conditions, even though each passage only mentions one and not the other.
When you read about the benefits of the New Covenant they very often sound unconditional.

Jeremiah 31:34 I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.

God will forgive sins in the time of the New Covenant, and it does not mention any conditions. Does that mean it is unconditional? Acts 13:38 says faith is a condition for receiving forgiveness. 

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins 

So there are conditions, even though they are not mentioned in every place where the promise is mentioned. If God has placed a condition on one of His promises anywhere in the Bible then that condition does not suddenly disappear just because you happen to be reading a passage that does not mention it.

The Comfort of the Promise
Now, if you have always been taught that all God’s promises are unconditional – that they will happen no matter what you do, so that your actions or lack of actions do not really determine anything of any real significance- if you have been taught that way then when you hear this it may sound to you like it destroys the promises. You might think – “If there are conditions attached, then the promise is worthless.”
Is that true? Can we really take any comfort in conditional promises (or in promises that are not fulfilled in an absolute way in this life)? Absolutely! According to Psalm 119:50 those promises preserve our very life.
The conditions are good
The conditions do not destroy the promises for two reasons. First, because the conditions are always good. Most, if not all, of the conditions God places on His promises boil down to this one condition: Give up what is worthless in order to receive what is priceless.
You see, the reason we do not experience God’s conditions as oppressive or burdensome is because God only places good conditions on His promises. If you give up the sludge off the bottom of the garbage dumpster I will give you a feast. If you give up darkness and destruction and death I will give you glory and light and life. If you let go of your love affair with the devil you can be the Bride of the King. So not only are the promises delightful to us, but the conditions are delightful to us, because they are for our good.
The conditions are possible
A second reason why the conditions do not spoil the promises is because the conditions are always within our reach. God is not like a mortgage lender who says, “The condition for getting this loan is you have to make $100,000/year.” But if you do not make that much then it is just out of your reach. None of God’s promises are like that.
The very fact that God makes the promises to all of us implies that it is possible for all of us to meet the conditions. He will give you the grace to meet His conditions.
 “But doesn’t God sometimes place conditions on His promises that He knows we will never be able to meet?” 
Does He command the impossible? Is God like a parent who tells his three year old, “If you get in shape so you can run a two-minute mile, then I’ll take you to Disneyland”? Does God do that sort of thing with us? No. When God gave the law to Moses He said,

Deuteronomy 30:11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.

Isaiah 45:19 I have not said to Jacob's descendants, 'Seek me in vain.' I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.

The implication of that verse is that if God were to tell us to do something knowing that our efforts to obey would be in vain, then He would not be speaking the truth or declaring what is right. It would be a lie because the command implies the ability to obey it.
Do you realize what that means? It means as long as you are willing, you can have anything God has promised! Nothing is beyond your reach. God does not make any promises that apply only to certain super-Christians. There are no promises in Scripture that have such high conditions attached that we should think, “Oh, that’s for those upper-echelon Christians. It doesn’t have any realistic application to me.” That is never the case. All of God’s promises are for all of God’s children. 
It is hard to appreciate this principle unless you have been in a position where people you trust were telling you that pleasing God or meeting His conditions was out of your reach. If every single leader in this church came to you one day and said, “You are in sin, but you can’t see it because you’re self-deceived,” you would be wise to search your heart with the utmost honesty and humility to see if what we were saying is true. And you should search the Scriptures to the best of your ability. And you should cry out to God day and night and beg Him to show you. But – if you did all that and still you were unable to find any unrepentant sin in your heart, it would be wrong for you to take our word for it. Because if you did, you would be saying, “I trust those men more than I trust the Holy Spirit.” God will never put His requirements out of your reach. As a father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him, and He remembers that we are dust (Ps.103:13, 14). You would not make it impossible for your kids to know what you want and then spank them for not knowing it. And God is a more understanding and more compassionate parent than you are. He will never place His requirements out of your reach.

Conclusion
So, is the danger real danger? Yes, it is. That is why we need to pray hard for our brothers in sin, and that is why we need to be on guard to keep ourselves from idols.
Are the promises real promises? Yes, they are. God will protect us and guard us from the evil one. We are safe in His arms.
Is that a contradiction? No. The promises are not absolute, and they are conditional. So if you do not meet the conditions, the danger is very real. If someone says, “Come inside my house and you will be totally safe” – if you don’t meet the condition (if you don’t run inside the house), then you are still in danger.
So the danger remains, because there is always a risk of failing to meet the conditions. However, at the same time, the promises of protection are sweet and immensely comforting to us, because the conditions are always possible for us to meet, which means as long as we are willing we can have victory over the evil one. As long as you are willing to perservere you will be able to persevere. Satan will never be able to overpower you without your consent. He will never just prove to be too much for you. God will always provide a way out – a way that is possible for you.
Knowing that is vital in this war. There are so many times people give up because they think they cannot win. Just think of how hard Satan works in your life trying to convince you that some particular battle is hopeless. 
“You will never overcome this. You have been battling it for years and you are no better off now than you were ten years ago. Who are you kidding? You will never win. Just give up.”
Last summer I had my Jeep up in Lefthand Canyon, and I came to a spot that was especially difficult. I tried two or three times to get past it, and couldn’t, so I decided my Jeep just couldn’t make that move and I gave up and just turned around. A week later I tried it again and finally got past that spot. Once I did that I knew it was possible. And from then on I never had any trouble getting past that spot. You see, when you think something might be impossible, then as soon as it gets really hard, you are prone to quit because for all you know it is impossible. But when you know for sure that it is possible, then you are much less prone to give up. That means as long as you are willing, you can have anything God has promised!
When you have these thoughts, “It’s just too hard to do the right thing here. I can’t do it. I just don’t have the strength to do what the Bible says in this situation,” if it is possible that those words are true, then Satan will defeat you every time just by making it hard. But when you believe God’s great and precious promises, and you know for an absolute fact that it is possible for you to do what is right, and you are motivated on the other hand by God’s terrifying warnings about the danger of not obeying, you will have victory over the evil one.

Benediction: 1 Co.1:4-9 I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 for in him you have been enriched in every way--in all your speaking and in all your knowledge--6 because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. 7 therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 he will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

Victory by Faith: Part 7 Keep Yourself from Idols 5:20-21

Summary: We are protected from Satan by understanding (information leading to insight leading to intimacy). Satan works by darkening the understanding to pull you away from knowledge of God, so protection from that comes in the form of understanding that enables knowledge of the true God. Therefore keep yourselves from idols (anything that competes with knowing God). Idolatry is greed, because it is looking to some created thing to satisfy your desires with the idea that you have to have that thing to be happy. Convince your soul that idols won’t satisfy by realizing that they are powerless, burdensome, they cost you grace, and are adultery against God.

Introduction
Protection through knowing God
Information
Insight
Intimacy
Satan works through lies, darkening, and deception
Out of step
Keep yourself from idols
Definition of idolatry
Idolatry and greed
Arguments against idolatry
Idols are powerless
Idols are burdensome
Idolatry forfeits grace
Idolatry = Adultery
Conclusion

1 John 5:18 We know that anyone born of God does not sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot touch him. 
19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world lies in the evil one. 
20 But we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 
21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. 

Introduction
We come now to the last two verses in 1 John, and as I spent the last couple lessons thinking through the previous 41 sermons in our study of this book, I tried to discern the flow of thought so I could summarize it for you this morning. What I found was something that I already knew – the thought in 1 John does not really flow. It is more of a collage of thoughts than a flow of thought. John has taken some of the most basic and fundamental themes of the gospel, like love, faith, knowledge, sin, prayer, truth, the world and he has revisited each of them over and over – each time showing us how those doctrines relate to each other. One time he will discuss love as it relates to knowledge, then later how it relates to prayer, and then to the world. And so it is hard to put headings on each section, because he is always discussing two or three at a time.
But now that we have spent a year learning all about the relationships between all these various doctrines, if we back up and take in the whole, big picture of the book you see that each section has been a piece of one, giant portrait that John has been painting. And now that all the pieces are in place the overall picture is plainly visible. And the picture – the great, controlling theme that is pointed to by each and every paragraph in the book, is this – knowing God. 1 John is a treatise on knowing God.
The basis of knowing God is the atoning work of Christ. The means of knowing God is faith in Christ. The result of knowing God is repentance of sin, warfare against the world and the devil, love for God’s people, and boldness and confidence in approaching God in prayer. John wrote to teach us the basis, the means, the activity, the implications, and the result of knowing God. And so it really should not be any shock to anyone that John ends the book with a paragraph about – guess what? – knowing God.

20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. 

Protection through knowing God
That is the big picture of the whole book. The little picture of the context here at the end of chapter 5 has to do with the promise that the Lord will protect us from Satan.

18 anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.

Satan cannot touch you because you are being protected by your elder Brother, the Lord Jesus Christ. We found last time, however, that we are not passive in our own protection. The way He protects us is by working in us to will and to act according to His good purpose. And so if it is not showing up in your will and your actions, then it is not happening. And that is where we left it last time - with just the general observation that the Lord protects us by working inside our hearts. But in verse 20 John gets more specific than that. How, exactly, does He work in our hearts to protect us against Satan?
The first word in verse 20 is “but” or “nevertheless.” Verse 20 is a contrast with verse 19. Verse 19: Satan controls the whole world, Verse 20: … but the Son of God has given us understanding.” And all of that is an explanation of verse 18, which says that Jesus protects us from the evil one. While the world is dominated by Satan, we are not because of the protection of Christ that comes to us by means of understanding. The way He works in you to will and to act according to His good pleasure is by granting you understanding. 
Information
Now if that is the case, we had better take a careful look at exactly how that works, because not only is understanding the key to being protected from Satan, but it is also the key to knowing God.
So what is this understanding? Is it just simply a matter of getting correct information in your head? Making sure you could ace a theology quiz? Haven’t we learned that knowing God is more of a relational, experiential thing than that? Yes, we have. However, you cannot possibly get to that relational experience of God without correct information about God.

20 … {He] has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true--even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Your heart might be full of all kinds of passion and devotion and commitment, but if it is directed toward a false god, it is worse than worthless. If you love Jesus with all your heart, but the Jesus you love is not the true Jesus of the Bible, then you are guilty of idolatry.

Romans 10:2 [the Jews] are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

Then He goes on to explain that those people are lost, and their only hope of being saved is if someone comes to them and preaches the gospel to them. Otherwise they will go to hell even though they are zealous for God! So knowledge is crucial. When someone comes and preaches a false Christ to you, how are you going to know it is not the true Jesus if you have not learned the information from the Bible about the essentials of the nature of Christ? If someone comes to you and tells you that Jesus was a created being, or that there are not three separate persons in the Trinity, or that God is too loving to send anyone to hell, or God does not know the future, or that His character is something like that woman in The Shack, the only way you will avoid being led astray is by being aware of how Scripture describes the true God.
That is why John is interested not just in talking about the fact that we have been given understanding, but also about the source of that understanding. The Gnostic false teachers John was writing against would have loved the idea of special understanding being given. They definitely would not have any argument with that by itself. But John’s point is not just that there is special understanding. His point is that that understanding comes through the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to us from heaven, and gave us the Holy Spirit who enlightens our hearts and enables us to understand and then accept and then embrace and believe what Scripture says.
There is an aversion, in many Christian circles, to academic knowledge. There are many who think that academic, intellectual, cognitive processes have nothing to do with knowing God and are not important. Those people are forever quoting 1 Corinthians 8:1 Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. I used to attend a church where the pastor preached shallow sermons on purpose because he didn’t want the people to get too much knowledge and become puffed up. That is a horrendous misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 8:1. If you even glance at the context of that chapter you will see that Paul is not making a general statement about all knowledge. He is speaking specifically about knowledge regarding grey areas that was being abused in that context. Obviously Paul did not believe that knowledge in general puffed up, or he would not have been writing 1 Corinthians! If it is bad to teach people, then it would be bad to teach them that teaching is bad.
Knowledge of the truth is not opposed to love at all. Just the opposite – love is impossible without knowledge. All godliness is impossible without knowledge. That is why Paul’s prayers for God’s people always focused on knowledge.

Philippians 1:9-11 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, 10 so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness 

Love and godliness and purity and blamelessness – all of it comes when you abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.

Colossians 1:9 we have not stopped … asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God

This is why Scripture places such a premium on teaching in the church. Information is crucial, and we should all be lifelong students who study hard.
I heard a statistic recently that most people stop striving to learn around age 40. Then they go the rest of their lives on what they have already learned. May that never be true of us. There are so many unfathomable riches available to us through the truth that God has given in His Word. May we never dishonor Him by becoming indifferent to the treasures of knowledge that we have not yet uncovered. Devote yourself to the study of God’s Word. And if you do not have the time or ability or resources, then devote yourself to listening to good preaching and teaching. Turn off the music and listen to good preaching, or the Bible on CD. Most people could increase their Bible knowledge tenfold just by utilizing the time they spend driving their car. You can now download seminary classes for free, so that you could get a seminary education just driving around in your car. Learning information from Scripture is absolutely critical. 
Insight
However, it is also critical to remember that information itself is not the ultimate goal. It is only a means to an end. Unless information leads to insight, it is worthless. When John speaks of understanding, that includes what I call “the three I’s.” The first “I” is Information. The second “I” is Insight. And the first must lead to the second or it is worthless. If you can quote entire books of the Bible by heart, and you can list all the pre-exilic kings in chronological or alphabetic order from memory, and you know exactly how many commas appear in the book of Genesis, but you do not know what the Bible teaches about how to use Scripture to overcome an anger problem or to gain a greater affection for your wife, then what good is all your knowledge?  

James 3:13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

Ephesians 1:18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you

Biblical understanding comes when true information is combined with enlightenment of the heart.
In Mark 8 Jesus gave an object lesson about how worthless it is to have information without insight. Jesus gave the Disciples a warning and they misinterpreted it. He was warning them against the influence of the Pharisees and Herod, and they thought He was upset because they forgot to bring lunch.

Mark 8:18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?

What does it mean to have eyes but fail to see and ears but fail to hear? Jesus is going to show them.

22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?" 24 He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around." 25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 

What happened? Did Jesus’ first attempt fail and He had to try again? Was the guy’s sight half-healed, but real blurry the first time? No. If you look at a man, and then put on someone else’s glasses so he becomes blurry, does he suddenly look like a tree? No. Trees are much taller, and they get really big and wide at the top. They don’t look anything like blurry people. The problem was this guy had been blind for so long – maybe his whole life, that he just didn’t know what people and trees actually looked like.
The first healing was a total, complete healing of the man’s eyes. After the first miracle the man could see just fine, but he did not know what he was seeing. He had what doctors call visual agnosia. Literally that means “visual non-understanding.” People who have been blind all their life and then have their sight restored can see fine, but they do not know how to interpret what they see.
Jesus healed his eyes, but did not give his brain the ability to understand what his healthy eyes were seeing. Then in the second miracle Jesus healed his brain so that he could not only see but also interpret and understand what he saw.
Usually when Jesus healed a blind man He did both miracles at the same time. Why do you think He did them one at a time in this case? Because His whole purpose was to explain what He meant by, “Do you have eyes but cannot see?” He was showing the Disciples that their knowledge was useless without insight. The only value of information is to get you to insight. If it does not do that, it is worthless.
Intimacy
For years I thought of insight as the goal. But it isn’t. There is a third “I” that is the ultimate goal.

20 … {He] has given us understanding, so that we may know him 

The purpose of information is insight, and the purpose of insight is intimacy – personal, relational, intimate knowledge of God. If your insights into Scripture are not increasing your nearness to God, affection for God, delight in God, communion and fellowship with God; then your insights are worthless. Jesus required one thing of us – love the Lord your God with every part of your being. Every second of your time not spent loving God is disobedience. There is nothing else in life – knowing and loving God is everything. If you learn principles from Scripture that help you forgive someone or help you break free of an addiction or overcome some problem, but it does not increase your affection for God, it is worthless. It is like a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 
Our goal should be for every action, every thought, every feeling we ever have all day long to be a little act of fellowship with God. There is not anything that should fall outside the bounds of loving God. If your job is not an expression of love for God and an enjoyment of God’s love for you then you should either change the way you work or quit. The same goes for your recreation, your relationships, your eating, drinking, sleeping – everything. That is why the most precious of the jewels in God’s Word are the attributes of God, because experiencing those is the most direct path to increasing your delight in God.
Satan works through lies, darkening, and deception
So that is how the Lord protects us from the evil one. The whole world is under the control of Satan, but Satan cannot touch you because Jesus Christ came and gave you understanding that leads to genuine knowledge of the true God - Information leading to insight leading to intimacy. That is how He works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.
And that makes sense given what we know about how Satan works. If God is going to protect us from Satan, think of what it is Satan does that we need protecting from.

2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

He works by blinding people to truth.

Ephesians 4:17 you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them 

Satan is a threat - not because he might steal your money or make you sick or somehow overpower you. He is the threat because he is working hard at darkening your understanding. That is what he does. And he does it because he knows that enlightenment leads to knowledge of God, and darkening leads to alienation from God. And so if the threat is darkened understanding, then protection from that threat is enlightened understanding. And so the way the Son of God protects us from the evil one is by enabling us to gain information that leads to insight that leads to intimacy with God. Bottom line: Your protection from the evil one lies in your knowledge of God.
Out of step
Think of the significance of knowing God. In verse 18 John says we are of God and in verse 19 he says the world is in Satan. “Of God” means we belong to God, we resemble God in our character, we are born of Him, we are united to Him in our hearts. All of the amazing things John has said all the way through this book about our union with God – all of them are wrapped up in this one little phrase, “of God.” We are of God. And the world is “in Satan.” That means on his side, in his realm, under his control. Be careful about using the excuse, “The devil made me do it.” The devil controls the world and not the children of God, so if the devil made you do something that means you are not a Christian. Now think of what a massive statement John is making when he says we are of God and they are in Satan. How different are God and Satan? They are as different as it is possible to be. God is perfect good and Satan is total evil. They are infinitely opposite.
So if it were really true about some human being that he was of God while the world is in Satan, if that were really true of someone do you realize how utterly out of step that person would be with the world? If you are born of, belong to, resemble, love, and are united to God, and the world is on the side of, in the realm of, under the control of Satan, think of the absolute night and day difference you would expect to see between you and the world. 
Back in chapter 2 John said that if anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. If you are more attracted to this world than you are to the kingdom of God, nothing could be a more dramatic red alert about your spiritual condition. That is why I tell young people – especially young women, that the most deadly threat they are likely to face is the temptation to become interested in someone of the opposite sex who is an unbeliever. What do the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan have in common? Nothing. And that brings us to verse 21.

Keep yourself from idols

21 Dear children, guard yourselves from the idols.

Once again John reminds us that we play an active role in our own protection. If you take the promise of protection as an absolute, automatic action that happens independently of you, then verse 21 sounds like a contradiction to verse 18. Jesus protects you, the evil one cannot touch you – so then why does he turn around in verse 21 and say you have to guard yourself? It is because the way Jesus protects you is by enabling you to learn from Scripture and gain insight leading to intimacy with God, and it is that knowledge of God that protects you. And so even though the protection comes from Him, it is also very much dependent upon you. 
Definition of idolatry
Verse 21 has been a puzzle for many commentators, because John has not mentioned idolatry anywhere in his book, so it seems kind of sudden for John to bring up idolatry out of the blue in the very last line without any explanation. Some people assume he does that because the church he was writing to was the home of Artimus, who was a famous pagan goddess. Most commentators look for a connection to the rest of the book, and so they end up identifying “the idols” as the doctrines of the false teachers that John has been opposing. That explanation is not very satisfying to me, however. I do not know of any place in Scripture where doctrines are called idols. 
How about we just keep this real simple? Verse 20 says we have been given understanding so that we could know the true God, verse 21 says keep yourselves from idols – could it be that what John means by idolatry here is the opposite of knowing the true God? He just wrote a whole book about knowing the true God. Anything that falls short of knowing the true God is idolatry.
Idolatry and greed
I would like to take the rest of our time to show you how perfectly that fits with al that the Bible teaches about idolatry. Ephesians and Colossians identify covetousness (greed) as idolatry.

﻿Ephesians 5:5 No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

﻿Colossians 3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

So in the New Testament idolatry is equated with greed (covetousness).
Based on those passages, very often people will think of the Old Testament idolatry as being literal bowing before statues, and New Testament idolatry as figurative, spiritual idolatry that isn’t really full-blown, Old Testament-type idolatry. But I do not think that is a very accurate way to think about it. All idolatry in both Testaments is fundamentally about covetousness. Whether or not someone expresses their covetousness by bowing before a statue or by preferring a trip to the mall over going to church, it does not matter. In Old Testament and New idolatry always has been an issue of the heart.

Ezekiel 14:4 Therefore speak to them and tell them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When any Israelite sets up idols in his heart … I the LORD will answer him myself in keeping with his great idolatry.

Even when there were literal statues involved, and actual pagan deities being worshipped – still, the place where the idol was erected was in the person’s heart. Do not think of bowing before a statue as literal idolatry and covetousness in the heart as figurative idolatry. It is exactly the other way around. Literal idolatry is what takes place in the heart. Bowing before a statue is nothing but a symbolic expression of the idolatry in the heart. Worshipping a false god is just like worshipping the true God in that the only significance of the external expression is the degree to which it reflects what is in the heart. If I am walking along and accidentally trip and fall on my face right in front of a statue of Buddha – I am not guilty of idolatry just because I am prostrate before a statue, any more than you are automatically engaged in genuine worship just because you are sitting in this room and singing along with the congregation. Worship is always a matter of the heart, and all idolatry takes place in the heart. In Biblical counseling circles you read a lot about “idolatry of the heart.” And I think it is good that they see it as a heart issue, but I think the use of that phrase is somewhat misleading, because it implies that there is some other kind of idolatry out there. There is not. All idolatry is idolatry of the heart. 
So, all idolatry is the same, idolatry always takes place in the heart, and twice in a list of various sins covetousness is singled out as being idolatry. In the Ten Commandments idolatry is described as having another god before the true God. That is interesting, because if the Old Testament is clear about anything it is that there are no other Gods. There is only one God. So the command is not to take something that is not God and treat it as if it were God. Idolatry is when you put something else is the place of God. And the reason it is the same as covetousness, or greed, is because greed looks to created things to satisfy the appetites and desires and cravings and longings of the soul. And that is God’s job. That is why God so often describes Himself as being like food and drink. He says He is like spring water and He is like milk and fine wine. He also compares Himself to bread and meat and choice foods and a feast. The point of all that is that God and God alone satisfies the hunger and thirst of the soul. When you are unhappy, unfulfilled, uncomfortable, uneasy, discontent, discouraged, despondent, depressed – any time things just are not quite right inside – that is hunger and thirst in your soul.
We all experience that and we all have certain created things that we are tempted to think of as the food and drink that will satisfy those cravings. Some of us run to recreation when we feel like that. Some of us lean on relationships, and look to people to give us the fulfillment we are looking for. Some of us just turn on the TV or go to a movie. For some of us it is the mall or the Internet or our favorite vacation spot. For some it is the refrigerator. When you have those times where your soul is just restless and unfulfilled and nothing is able to make you happy or satisfy you, where is it that you tend to think you will find the solution? If it is anyone or anything besides God, that is an idol in your life.
Most people think something becomes an idol when you love it too much. Think of the implications of that. If my wife becomes an idol in my heart, is the solution then for me to love her less? Should I keep reducing my love for her until it is small enough not to be idolatry? How do I know when it is finally small enough? When you give someone a gift the more they enjoy it the better. Idolatry is not enjoying God’s gifts too much. It is impossible to enjoy God’s gifts too much. Idolatry is when you look at those gifts as if they were the source of satisfaction for the longings in your soul rather than the presence of God. Idolatry is when you look to those things as if they were the water and the food that will satisfy your cravings. Listen to God’s description of Israel’s idolatry:

Jeremiah 2:11 my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. 12 Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror," declares the LORD. 13 "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Idolatry is when you look to some other source besides God for water (and water is that which satisfies the thirsts of the soul). And idolatry is not only an offense against God, but it is incredibly foolish because whatever it is that you think will make you happy is a leaky, broken water tank that cannot hold water. It won’t satisfy. It may give you some amount of pleasure short term, but it will not satisfy that longing in your heart.
I have told you before – you can illustrate God’s gifts as being like a mailman carrying letters from heaven. If a man sends his wife a letter, how happy does he want his wife to be when she sees the mailman coming? Answer – it is not an issue of how happy, but why she is happy. If it is because she is interested in the mailman himself, that is adultery. But if she is happy to see the mailman because he is carrying a letter from her husband, then the happier she is the better. Idolatry is when you look at the mailman (the gift from God – food, sex, recreation, people, etc.), and you think of that thing (rather than the presence of God) as the source of satisfaction for the cravings of your soul.
That is why idolatry was such a temptation for the Old Testament Israelites. Sometimes people read the Old Testament and wonder – “Why was idolatry so enticing to them? What is so tempting about bowing down in front of a statue?” It was tempting and alluring and enticing not because they enjoyed bowing before a statue, but because it seemed to them like it would satisfy the desires in their souls. Very often pagan worship involved getting drunk and all kinds of sexual things with temple prostitutes, etc. And the gods were easily manipulated – you go through whatever motions and you get what you want. Yahweh is not like that. You cannot control Him like a vending machine. So when someone comes along with a god you can control and manipulate to give you what you want when you want it, when you get a god who in essence allows you to be God – allows you to call the shots, - that is enticing to a greedy, covetous heart. 
John’s entire book has been all about knowing God, and preferring God above this world. It has been all about remaining true to the true God rather than running after some false gospel. And so it is no jolt at all for John to use the term “idols” at the end. The whole book is an argument against idolatry. The Son of God guards you and protects you from the evil one by enlightening your heart to see the truth so that you can know the true God. And since there is only one true God, anything else is an idol.
If you think of idolatry as some bizarre practice of ancient people and primitive jungle tribes, you are blind to the greatest danger that threatens your spiritual life. Every one of us is tempted with idolatry every day. Our hearts are idol factories, and when you depose one, another jumps right up into its place. That is why when people have been enslaved to alcohol and they finally stop drinking, they start smoking. We enslave ourselves to one broken cistern after another until we finally learn what it means to drink deeply from the Spring of living water, that Spring that satisfies the deep thirsts of our soul. And it is easy to point to alcohol or drug addiction and identify it as an idol. It is a little harder to see when your idol is reading a book or hanging out with friends or listening to music. But whatever it is that you believe you have to have to be happy is your God – that is the cistern that your heart thinks will satisfy the thirst of your soul.
Arguments against idolatry
And when your soul becomes convinced that it needs something in this world to satisfy it, it is next to impossible to convince it otherwise. When your soul thinks it could never be happy without this certain person, or some better circumstances, it is unbelievably hard to believe that the presence of God alone – even without that person or thing or circumstance, would fulfill you and make you happy – more happy than that thing your soul is craving. It is hard, but it is not impossible. And one thing that helps is the arguments in Scripture against idolatry. Let me just mention a few of them.

Idols are powerless 
The most frequent argument in Scripture is that idols are powerless.

Isaiah 46:5 "To whom will you compare me or count me equal? …6 Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. 7 They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Though one cries out to it, it does not answer; it cannot save him from his troubles. 9 …I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. 10 … My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. 

Isaiah 40:18 To whom, then, will you compare God? What image will you compare him to? 19 As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. 20 A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple. 21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? … 22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. 

The idols in your life are powerless. They have nothing to offer you beyond some shallow, temporary pleasure.

Isaiah 57:13 When you cry out for help, let your collection [of idols] save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away. But the man who makes me his refuge will inherit the land 

The next time you are in real trouble – you get laid off at work and can’t make your house payment, or they discover a lump, and it looks like it’s malignant, or your child is diagnosed with an incurable, fatal disease, or you come home and find the house is empty and divorce papers are on the kitchen table, the next time disaster comes crashing into your life, cry out to your idol and see if it can save you. Bow down to the refrigerator and see if a little overeating can deliver you. See if the pornography that you have given yourself over to has the power to rescue you from this crisis. Turn on the TV and see how much power that little god actually has to save you.
When real tragedy comes the things we think we need to be happy are exposed as utterly powerless and bankrupt. In times like that you open up the big water tank you have been trusting in and find it is actually bone dry.

Idols are burdensome  
In fact, not only are our idols powerless to remove the real burdens off our shoulders, but they themselves are burdensome.

Isaiah 46:1 …The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary.

They require everything from you and give you almost nothing in return. Our idols gobble up our money and our time and our thoughts and our affections. Sometimes they cost us our job or our family or our health. They take and take and take and give nothing in return. And in the day of disaster they are gone.
Anything you look to for your joy besides God will ultimately not only fail to give you joy, but it will drain you of whatever joy you have. And yet, even when that happens, we persist in pursuing them. Our idols drain us dry, bring us to ruin, sap us of everything, and still we persist in following after them.

Isaiah 57:10 You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, 'It is hopeless.' You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint.

It is amazing the perseverance we tend to have in our sin. Even when it brings us no pleasure at all, we become so enslaved we just persist in it until it costs us everything.

Habakkuk 1:16 The wicked foe … sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.

You will sacrifice everything to the thing that you see as the key to being happy.

Idolatry forfeits grace
I recently read a news story about a man who ran across a busy freeway and made it across, but then a gust of wind blew his hat off and he instinctively lunged to grab it, and was hit by a car and killed. The article in the paper said, “It’s amazing how one can lose everything chasing nothing.” That is a parable of idolatry. You lose everything chasing nothing. Jim Elliot said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Shortly after that he was speared to death trying to reach the Auca Indians with the gospel. That statement is true. But when we fall into the insanity of idolatry we lose sight of that, and we forfeit eternal riches to gain that which we cannot keep.
And that brings us to a third argument against idolatry. When you look to something in this world for your joy you forfeit the grace you could have otherwise had from God.

Jonah 2:8 Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

A lot of times people say, “I’ve tried reading my Bible and praying and all that, and it does not bring me near the pleasure that worldly things bring.” That is because as long as your heart is embracing another lover (this world) God will not grant the grace of His presence. Every time you prefer something in this world above the nearness of God you forfeit grace that you could have otherwise had.

Idolatry = Adultery 
One more – the most important argument of all against idolatry is this – idolatry = adultery against God. When you read the prophets you will see them switch back and forth between the terms idolatry and adultery. They are interchangeable, because we are the Bride of Christ, and all our affection belongs to Him. And so when we love the world we are adulteresses. 

James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses! Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? 

If you look to someone besides your spouse to fulfill your sexual desires, you are committing adultery against your spouse. And if you look to someone besides your God to fulfill the cravings of your soul you are committing adultery against your God. If you are trusting in something besides God to protect you financially, to provide for you, to rescue you from danger, to give you joy in life, that is adultery. 

Conclusion
What would be a fitting conclusion to wrap up not only this sermon, but the entire book of 1 John? How about John 17:3? At the end of His life Jesus looked up to heaven and prayed what has become known as the High Priestly Prayer. And at the beginning of that prayer He said this:

Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

What is the meaning of life? Knowing God. You exist to know God. That is why you exist, and it is why everything that happens to you happens to you – that you might know Him more.
Why should you read the Bible? To know Him more. Why pray? To know Him more. Why work? To know Him more. So keep yourself from the idols. Run as hard and as fast as you can away from anything that would tug on your heart to pull you off the course of knowing Him in favor of knowing this world.

Benediction: Ephesians 1:16 - 19 I never stop giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.  17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.