Well, grace and peace. So glad you guys are here this morning. Welcome to all those who are worshiping with us online. We do study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. If you’d like a paper copy, just lift up your hand real tall and someone will bring one around to you so you can follow along in the text. This morning we’re continuing our study of the Letters of John. This is our second week, in particular, of what we call First John, the first of these letters, likely written by the Apostle John, the writer of the Gospel of John, all the letters that we’re studying here, and Revelation.
If you haven’t caught it yet, John is an exquisite writer, a beautiful writer. Every word he penned bursts, coming right off the page with love and affection for his Lord Jesus and love and affection for his people. He is a pastor. He’s an apostle. We’ve titled this series “That You May Know.” The word “know” or “knowing” or some combination of those is used 36 times in First John. Every time you hear that word or the phrase “that you might know,” you might write this down in your journal or in your Bible. Every time you hear that word or phrase throughout our study of the Letters of John, keep in mind the deep love from which that statement comes.
John, throughout history, has been known as the beloved disciple. “The one whom Jesus loved” is the way that John puts it in his gospel. He knows the love of Christ and he cannot help but delight in it and declare it and showcase it and point others to it and write about it for his readers, for his people’s sake, and for us here this morning. If you were here with us last week, we read this in the opening paragraph of this letter. We’ll put it up here on the slide, First John 1:2. “…the life [that is Jesus] was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim it to you the eternal life.
By the way, there’s a little side road here. I love his writing, but I also love John because he loves lists. Any list lovers in the room today? I’m one. Just keep this in the back of your mind. You’ll notice often he uses lists of three, groupings of three. We’ll actually see that here today as he did here in this text. We have seen it, we testified, and we proclaim it. He can’t help but talk about the love of Christ. John is writing like a pastor, as a pastor, as a spiritual father, if you will. You’ll hear some of that kind of language, to a group of folks who needed the grace of assurance. Do you need that this morning?
Assurance, that they know God, more importantly, that they are known by God. Not just know about Him, but know Him. Walk with Him, rest in Him, abide in Him. Do you need that grace this morning? I love how Isaiah puts it. Isaiah 12:23. He says, “With joy you will draw from the wells of salvation.” I think John helps us get at that.
Do you need assurance that you are a child of God? Assurance that we are in Christ, that you are in Christ this morning, that assurance is on offer for you today. In often tender language, John calls to his people. He says essentially, “Here’s who you are and here’s who you belong to, to whom you belong.” Remember that. Now walk in light of that truth. Walk in light of that identity, who you are in Christ. Walk in a way that squares up with who you are and to whom you belong. Put another way, John often seems to be saying that those who are known by God, and who know God through His Son, Jesus Christ, begin to take on the family resemblance. The likeness of Christ. We just sang about it.
We who are in Christ are no longer bound to sin and darkness. I don’t know who in this room or online needs to hear that. You are no longer bound to sin and darkness if you are in Christ, but you are, as Paul would put it, new creations—not kind of new creations. You are new creations brought into the family of God and have been set free by the Spirit to live a life of faithfulness. Not perfection, not flawlessness, but a heart and mind being renewed towards eternity.
Our assurance, first and foremost, comes by fixing our eyes on Jesus. We love Him because He first loved us. The Apostle John tells us in Chapter 4, this is the ballast, the cornerstone, of any assurance that we can have, that He loved us. It’s immovable. He will hold us fast. But as we’ll see in the text this morning, John calls his people and us today to attention and invites them to survey their lives for evidence of this grace. Not evidence of flawlessness, but evidence of a life pressing towards the goal. Another phrase that the Apostle Paul uses, “pressing towards the goal,” the branch growing from the provision of the vine, if you will. A life being renewed more and more and more into the image of our Lord. Do you know the Lord like that?
It’s a good question to ask. Do we bear the family resemblance? As we study the letter this morning, here are a few summary diagnostic questions. We’re going to put them up on the screen. These might be helpful to jot in the notebook or in the Bible. Questions to help diagnose my spiritual condition.
Where is my attention? Am I fixing my eyes on Christ or on myself or on the world and what it has to say about me? Where is my attention? Where are my affections? In other words, what do I love? Do I treasure Christ? Do I treasure the Lord above all things? When that’s right, all other loves fall into line. Lastly, what is my direction? You can see the logical flow there where I put my attention, what I love leads to where my feet go. A heart that’s been changed by Christ’s feet will follow along with it. Before we dive in though, look with me for a moment. If you would turn in your Bibles to, for just a second, the Gospel of John, same writer.
The Gospel of John Chapter 17:3. Because I think, at least, these kinds of words from his Lord and our Lord as well are ringing in his mind as he writes this letter, the Gospel of John 17:3. Jesus, just a little context, is in the middle of what we call the high priestly prayer. He’s praying to His father for His disciples, and He explicitly says for the disciples that would come after them. That’s for you and for me today. I hope you know that. Jesus is praying for us in this text, and He’s praying for the Apostle John in this text. I have to imagine this is rolling around in the back of his mind. John 17:3, “And this is eternal life.” If Jesus says that we should pay attention. “And this is eternal life, that they,” meaning us, “know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” He links eternal life, salvation, to knowing God the Father, through Him. Keep that in the back of your mind as we read. Turn to the right a little bit in your Bibles to First John, if you would, Chapter 2. In just a moment we’ll start with verse 1.
Let me pray first: Living God help us so to hear Your holy Word that we may truly understand, and that understanding we may believe, and in believing we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience. In following You, may we come to know You with such intimacy that our ears are attuned to Your voice. Holy Spirit, do a renewal or revival in my heart and our hearts here today, so that we might be able to follow You in obedience, delighting in proclaiming, testifying to Your love in word and in deed, in Jesus’ name we said, amen.
First John Chapter 2:1, “My little children [term of endearment there. He loves these people] I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” John, he has an overarching purpose for all of his letters, but lots of different kinds of purposes all throughout. Here we see it very plainly. My little children, my dear ones, you could translate it. I’m writing you, why? So that you may not sin.
He doesn’t want them to sin. He wants them to walk in light of who they are. But if anyone does sin, He’s realistic, we have an advocate, a mediator, an intercessor, someone to speak on our half. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. You might underline that because I think He did this very intentionally. Jesus, His name, Christ, His title, Messiah, the righteous, all three qualify Him for what He’s done for us on our behalf on the cross we see behind me.
Verse 2, “He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” Some of you thought I just cussed. Others of you thought I sneezed. I’m going to define propitiation in a little bit. But for our purposes now, He has done all that is necessary. He has satisfied the just wrath against sin and its destructive effects for those who come to Him.
All those who come to Him—anyone. The offer is open to anyone who would receive Him in faith and repentance. There’s so much there. We could camp out there for months. Verse 3, “…by this we know that we have come to know him.” Same word, know and know. One word is epistemic, epistemological. It’s like a grasping in the mind, if you will. By this we know something, we can grasp it that we have come to know Him. Do you catch what I’m saying here? It’s almost like a heart and a mind. It’s a double kind of knowing. It’s a fully orbed kind of knowing that he wants us to be assured of. By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. There’s the evidence of it.
We know Him if we walk in His ways. Verse 4, here’s a claim, “Whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected.” In Greek that word is “teleios.” We would say, “telos,” it has an end goal. We are a future-oriented faith. Not perfection this life, but renewing towards, what we will be in maturity when the Lord returns. By this, we may know that we are in Him. Verse 6, here’s another claim, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” I love this. It’s another way of getting at the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is using Jesus here as an example. We often say around here that Jesus is far more than example, but there is not a better example than Jesus. I’m speculating here. But I wonder if he’s probably thinking of many things that Jesus did in His ministry here on earth; healing those, going out of His way to touch those who are untouchable. In the upper room, taking a servant’s towel and bending His knee and dipping it in water and washing His disciples’ feet. I have to imagine he has those things in mind when he says, “If you say you abide in him, you’ll start to look like our savior looked” the one he saw and touched, as he told us in Chapter 1.
When we read this letter aloud, and I love this about all the epistles in the New Testament, we have the privilege of listening in to the correspondence between pastor and his people that he deeply loves, though the Spirit’s inspiration is for us today as well. From the outset of this section, we see one of John’s goals, or you could even say purposes, one of them for his letter set alongside a profound description of the gift of the Gospel for you and for me today. Let’s set our eyes there one more time at verse 1. “I am writing these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin…” He knows our frailty, John does, “…we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.” In that title, he links our assurance to what Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross. I love that.
Jesus Christ, the righteous, he affirms His humanity. Jesus the incarnate one, Jesus, God made flesh. Who John says he saw, and he touched. Jesus Christ, His title, His divinity, His role, Christ the Messiah, the sent one from God, the Son of God and the righteous one, the only human who knew no sin. It’s at least those three things that make Him uniquely qualified to reconcile rebel sinner like me to a holy God. Only Jesus is fully righteous, fully man, fully God. I’m going to ask you a question: Who is your advocate? Can you point to Him? Can you say that you know Jesus? I hope that’s true.
If you’re a believer this morning, be reminded afresh of this good news. If you can say with honesty this morning that you don’t know the Lord, hear John’s words of grace for you this morning. Would you come to know Him? It says for the whole world, the offer is for anyone who would come in repentance and faith.
I love Robert Murray M’Cheyne. I’ve probably used this quote in every sermon I’ve ever preached. I’m not sure.
“If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies.”
–Robert Murray M’Cheyne
Yet the distance makes no difference. He is praying for me and He’s praying for you. He’s interceding even right now, brothers and sisters.
Here in these two opening statements, we have what I’m going to call this blessed tension to those who are in Christ. Remember he’s writing primarily to believers. He’s writing with the kindness of clarity, I think, that you may not sin. He’s calling them away from sin that you should walk in a way that squares with who you are in Christ. Don’t dabble with your old master. Don’t look back longingly at who you once were. Some of us need to hear this clarity today. Is that you? Elisabeth Elliot has this quote that puts a finer point on it. “Sometimes ‘struggling’ is a nice word for ‘postponed obedience.’” Cracks me up. Some of us need to hear that including myself.
John though, along with his clarity of kindness, he’s calling them away from sin. He offers this assurance of grace because he knows that we are clay pots, this side of heaven. We are frail. We will stumble. When you stumble, turn around and turn your attention to Jesus and His finished work on the cross. He offers both. Here is the root and the source of our assurance. Brothers and sisters hear this: Jesus Christ, the righteous one. I know that’s simple. You’ve heard it in Sunday school, every single Sunday of your life if you’ve been a believer for a long time, but we need to hear it again. We are gospel amnesiacs said Paul Tripp. I hope that’s what you walk away from sin. Listen friends, he has satisfied the legal requirements of the penalty for our sin. That is so true. That is the cornerstone. It’s far more than that. But that’s the cornerstone.
He has made a way for us to be adopted as children of God so that we can say, as we already have this morning, “our Father who art in heaven,” and His Spirit empowers us to live into that new identity. We are new creations, not kind of new creations. We are new. We have a new way of living. We are not reconciled to a holy God by anything that we have done, but only what He has done on our behalf. We need to get that clear. Each of us gathered for worship though this morning, who believe, walked in here at different stages of Christian maturity. Some of you were pointing at your neighbor. I just noticed. Whether you’ve been following Jesus for 80 years, or maybe you’ve been a believer for a few weeks, the Holy Spirit has a word for you, has something for you today.
Have you come in here today weary from stumbling, riddled perhaps by shame because you’ve slipped again? As one of your pastors, I can proclaim along with the Apostle John the good news of both sides of this tension. Sin is no longer your master. I’m writing these things so that you do not sin. Sin is no longer your master. You need not live under its yolk and it’s a horrible yolk. It’s a horrible slave master. You can walk in newness of life and make progress and faith. But if you have stumbled this week, and that’s all of us, take a fresh look at Christ and hear the good news for you today. The assurance of grace should always bring us back to the cross. Can we say amen? Amen.
All right. Let’s keep reading it. Verse 7, “Beloved…” or dear ones, some of your translations will say, you can hear how much he loves this church. “I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard.”
What is this old commandment that he’s referring to? We don’t know exactly. Probably in my mind, it’s a combination of things. It’s what he heard his Lord Jesus teach and what we read in his gospels, and the Sermon on the Mount and all of his other teachings. It also, I think, goes all the way back to what we talked about in our creed this morning, from the Westminster shorter catechism, the 10 Commandments. Again, two tables of the law, love of God and love of neighbor. I think that’s what John is pointing to. This is not a new thing that I’m telling you. This is an old commandment. But we have to keep reading. At the same time, verse 8, he says, “It is a new commandment that I’m writing to you, which is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.”
Jesus fulfills the requirements of the old law. I think that’s what John is getting at here. In a way it’s old, but it’s new in Christ. Again, it’s a forward-looking faith. The darkness indeed is fading away because Jesus has been resurrected. He has inaugurated this new kingdom and one day He will return to set all things right. The darkness is fading away, but the light is continuing to grow. That already and not yet that we’re in right now. Verse 9, here’s another claim. If you notice, there’s three claims here. “Whoever says he’s in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”
John’s starting to get into a description of what he’s later going to call “the world.” All the way the world behaves and thinks and acts apart from God. There’s a proverb in Proverbs 4:18 and 19. It says something like, “The path of the righteous continues to get brighter and brighter until noon day, but the walk of the darkness causes stumbling over.” You don’t even know what you’re stumbling over. He’s contrasting here the old way, who you once were, and the new way of walking in the light.
Have you noticed that he’s used the word “abide” I think it’s twice here, and he’ll use it here in another place? There’s something beautiful about that word. It’s very rich. It’s where we get abode. It’s residing. It’s taking residents in. It’s leaning in. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light. I hope that marks us here today. There’s a sobering truth in the text of this passage. Like I said, you can see how John employs different contrasts, light and dark, truth and lies, knowing and not knowing. Since the rebellion in the garden, sin has marred, twisted, distorted God’s good creation, sin rips apart, relationships bring shame, death. It is darkness, one and the same.
All that is opposed to God and his ways. What scripture, again, John’s going to call “the world,” the systems and the values the way it thinks and acts apart from God. That is spiritual darkness and the blindness he’s talking about here. Jesus taught us this. Jesus taught John this, the wheat and the tares, the good and the bad trees, the sheep and the goats. We should not be surprised, my friends, when the world looks like it’s stumbling in the dark. It is. But what John is carefully, I think, and tenderly saying to these people is that “we,” those who are in Christ, should be awakened and sobered, when those of us who have been born again to new life, who our new creations are stumbling around as if we are in the dark. Remember who you are.
Remember the aim of this letter is to believers. Those who are in the light, and he sobers us up. He sobered them up: get up, sit up, pay attention. He calls us to renewed faithfulness. Faithfulness, not flawlessness, but it does look like something. I’ve mentioned this along the way. We’ll put it up here on the screen. There are evidences of knowing God, evidence of the grace that has been given to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. When I say, “I know Christ,” if that’s true, the evidence is obedience to the word of Christ. When I say, “I abide in Christ, I take up residence in Him, I lean into Him,” when I say that, the evidence is that I start to begin to look like him.
When I say, “I am in the light,” the evidence is I reflect the love of God in Christ, the love of Christ. In particular, John teases this out and he says, “Darkness looks like hatred of brother or sister.” Really stark language, I think, for us. On first reading, you might hear that and think, “Well, I don’t really have a problem with hating anyone, hating my brother or sister. That’s not something I do.” But later on in his letter, he gives a little bit more precision to what hatred of another can look like. Indifference to need. Violence, selfishness, malicious words, gossip, bitterness, unforgiveness, quarreling, consuming rather than serving, lust rather than love, posturing for power and position at the expense of others. There are just a few ways that we can hate our brother and sister.
If we abide in the light, our heart should and will change. There is no repugnant other in the kingdom of God. There were those within this particular church that John is writing to who were false teachers, who were wolves in sheep’s clothing, who were walking in the darkness while pretending to be in the light. John is equipping his people to be discerning, to test the spirits, but he’s also reminding these believers of who they are. You used to stumble around in the darkness, but you no longer belong to the darkness. You belong to the light. Now walk in the light.
Let’s keep reading it to verse 12. “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his namesake. I am writing to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. I’m writing to you, young men, because you have overcome or prevailed over the evil one.” The evil, one by the way, is the prince of darkness. The conductor of the world, if you will, in its systems and ways. “I write to you children because you know the Father.”
Verse 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 abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” You’ve prevailed over the evil one, the prince of darkness. What do we do with this little section here, 12 to 14? Did you catch that there’s two series of threes? John loves his lists.
We don’t know for sure, but a lot of folks speculate, and I tend to agree, that verses 12 through 14 is a little poem or even maybe a song that he’s written for this church. A simple way for us to understand this is he says, “I’m writing to you, little children, to fathers and to young men.” Little children is the entire church or to this group of folks that he’s writing to.
To the fathers, he’s thinking of the spiritual fathers. He’s thinking of the older generation. This includes women as well, and to the younger men and younger women. We have the whole church that he addresses. Then he addresses the older generation, and he addresses the newer generation. I just love the way the Apostle John writes. But look at verse 12: “I am writing to you, little children…” this is the whole church, because your sins are forgiven for his namesake. This whole little poem or song is about their identity, who they are in Christ, the whole thing. This is who you are. He starts with the cornerstone. Your sins have been forgiven. Look to Jesus.
Then if you skip down right before 14, when he repeats this little grouping of three, “I write to you children [the whole church] because you know the Father.” Don’t forget who you know and who knows you, church. Verse 15, I think this is connected to that poem there. Do not love the world. Here he’s using that phrase, the world. This is the way the world works, the systems, the values that are set against God. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life [another grouping of three] is not from the Father but is from the world. The world is passing away along with its desires; but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” He’s showing, he’s contrasting, the way of the light and the way of darkness, the way of those who know the Lord and the way of the world which is set against God.
We see here the desires of the flesh, or the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life. In contrast to John’s description of believers who walk in the light, John illuminates some of the marks of the world. The desires of the flesh—let’s start with that first one. It seems to indicate, I think, disordered desires from within. Temptations towards things that are not true, good or beautiful. The desire for good food is from the Lord …amen… or drink. A disordered desire, though, is to consume it good food and drinks so much that it brings destruction. Just as an example, gluttony. The desires are the lusts of the eye. Here’s a second one, “of the eye,” seems to indicate temptations that are external. The first one, internal. I think they’re linked.
But the external things—taking things that do not belong to you. Lust says, “I want to consume you.” Love says, “I want to serve you.” Robert Law put it this way, “Lust is the love of beauty, divorced from the love of goodness.” The third one: The pride of life or the pride of possession. Some of your translations will say, “The boasting, the resting and the abiding in”… what?” In your own gifts, your own wealth, your own power, your own position. That’s building your house on sand, my friends. This is the way that the world and its systems work. John says, “But not you, my little children who know the Lord. Do not love the world or the things in the world,” John says, “Remember who you are and to whom you belong. You have overcome. You have prevailed over the evil one, the prince of the world. Because of Jesus Christ, now live in the fullness of joy offered to you as those who are in the light.”
Abide, take up residence in an identity in Christ. For a moment, let’s return to the beginning of our text. Chapter 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” This is not the heavy hand of a task master, but the kindness of clarity from a mature believer, the Apostle John, a pastor calling his people back to the family, back to the likeness of family resemblance. We’ll continue reading: “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins.”
Propitiation is such a rich word with a depth, and a breadth, and it stands at the center of our assurance that we are in Christ, reconciled to a holy God. Let’s unpack that a little bit. John says, “Fix your attention there, the cross, and there you will find your assurance.” A lot of folks ask this question, why does God not simply just say the words, “You are forgiven” and move on? Why is it necessary to satisfy the wrath God has for sin and for rebellion? Because of the many attributes of God and the constellation of attributes that we can only barely scratch the surface of that have been revealed in His Scripture. Our God is merciful. He is loving, but He is righteous and He is just. All those things hold together.
We all want justice. We want justice for the atrocities that are happening in Sudan right now, for the believers who are being persecuted in Saudi Arabia that we prayed for, for the human trafficking taking place in our own corner of the world, for the scourge of pornography on young men and women, for the way that malicious words twist truth into lies, gossip into tattered reputations. A holy and just God cannot simply sweep sin in its destruction under the rug. We get that. His wrath against sin is not a cranky explosion, but it’s a settled opposition against all that would try to destroy His good creation. Christ on the cross bore that wrath in my place, if you’re a believer today, in your place. He satisfied the justice that was required … the justice of God.
In his resurrection, this is the good news, He has overcome the evil one. He has overcome the world and the things of this world. As the song says, “His dying breath has brought me life.” We can say, “I know that it is finished.” That’s how John can say to his people, “I write to you, children, because you know the Father.” How do they know the father? Because they have Jesus Christ, the righteous, as their advocate. Christ has made a way for a sinner such as I to know God and to have the assurance that I am known by Him and loved by Him. That same song, I just love it: “I will not boast in anything…” Do you remember those words? “No gifts, no power, no wisdom, but I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and His resurrection.” Why?
It ends, this I know with all my heart, “…His wounds have paid my ransom,” the ground and the source of my assurance. As we leave this place today, friends, and we go back to our everyday work, our rest and our play, how do we put these things into practice? I mentioned the summary diagnostic questions earlier on. Where is my attention? These are just a few ways. Where is my attention? Am I looking first to my Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous, my advocate? Am I abiding in the Word? You do that, yes, by reading, by listening, by coming to church, by being with other brothers and sisters, learning from one another.
Am I dabbling? Am I looking longingly at my old master, the world? He says, John tells us, fix your eyes on the Lord, on Jesus the righteous one. Where are my affections? What do I treasure? What do I love above all else? I love how Dane Ortlund said it this way:
“You can’t crowbar your way into change. You can only be melted.”
–Dane Ortlund, Deeper
Our affections lead to our direction. That’s the third one. What is my direction? Where am I going? How am I living? Am I living in the way in which He walked, as John said. If Christ has changed your heart, your feet will follow.
Remember who you are in Christ. Remember who you belong to. John tells the church, “I write to you because you know the Father.” Do you know Him? Hear those words of assurance this morning. May the Spirit do a renewal and a revival in our own hearts that we might lift our eyes to attention to Him. It might start changing our affections and lead us in His way. J.I. Packer says it this way, I love this,
“All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me.”
–J.I. Packer, Knowing God
We love because He first loved us as Apostle John will tell us later. Church, let’s live in light of that. Amen. Let’s walk in the newness of life.
Let’s pray: Heavenly Father, thank You for calling us Your children. Help us grasp the heights and the depths of what that means. Wake us up to see all the riches You have for us in Your fatherly love. Lord, this morning we acknowledge our need. I acknowledge my own need. In spirit, we can do none of this, walking in the light, walking in Your ways without Your help, and we call on that help today. We ask that You remind us afresh of who we are and the treasures that are available to us in the Gospel because of what our Lord Jesus has done for us on our behalf. Wake us up. Renew us. Stir revival in this place. In Jesus’ name, we all said, amen.
(Edited for reading)
