Introduction

MUSICIAN ILLUSTRATION:

  • In college, I travelled with several different musical groups that played Christian music and presented the gospel
  • Years after these groups disbanded, I received a call from one of the musicians. He was getting a divorce.
  • On further investigation, it turned out that he had been hitting his wife and she left him.
  • Speaking with Pastor Jon about the situation, he asked me if I really thought that this man was a believer
    • I was shocked with the question. We played Christian music together. Certainly he was a believer.
    • Pastor Jon asked me, “what about your friends behavior right now indicates that he is walking in the light.”
    • I had to admit that I was at a loss. He was walking in darkness and was totally unrepentant about his decisions. (His attitude was that she deserved to be hit and that it was not that big of a deal)
  • Could it be that he had been playing at church and was never really saved? Could it be that he liked church music and church people, but never knew Jesus personally? It’s a good question.

As a church, we believe that once you are a child of God, that nothing can separate you from God. Children of the King don’t lose their status as family members. We base that belief on the clear teaching of scripture from passages like Romans 8:38-39:

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

With that Biblical truth in mind John was forced to address a situation that we often face today in the church. Here’s the scenario:

  • A person came to church.
  • They heard the gospel.
  • They said a prayer indicating that they wanted to follow Jesus.
  • Maybe they even started to lead a ministry in the church. (or perhaps they played on the worship team)
  • Then, after a period of time, they walked away from the faith, they started living like a non-believer again and they rejected the Savior in whom they once professed.

Skip down with me to verse 19. John seems to be facing the same situation in his church that we have often faced in the modern church. Speaking of people who have left the church he says:

19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

It seems that the issue of assurance of salvation had been raised in the early church. If someone was once a professing disciple of Jesus and they are no longer acting that way, are they still a disciple of Jesus?

If a person was seemingly following Jesus at some point and they cannot lose their salvation, then what do you do with the verses like 1 John 1:6?

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Are they still saved? Are they still going to heaven? These are an excellent questions. There were some false teachers at the time who were promoting the idea that mystical or emotional experiences with God made you right with God and your actions had nothing to do with your spiritual health. In this book, John calls them liars. Keep up with me as we look at a few verses about these false teachers and if you listen carefully, you can hear John’s frustration with them:

  • 1 John 1:8 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
  • 1 John 1:10 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
  • 1 John 2:4 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
  • 1 John 2:6 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
  • 1 John 2:9 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
  • 1 John 4:20 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

It’s not hard to hear the false teaching that John was addressing behind each one of those statements. These teachers were claiming that they were filled with truth and they had fellowship with God while they were living in darkness and living in rebellion towards Jesus’ commands. They claimed to be without sin and assumed they were right with God while they were living sinful lifestyles. They were heading to an eternity of separation from God and ever worse – taking people with them.

Take a look at 1 John 3:7-8

7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

The scripture is clear that a person cannot lose their salvation, but in the scenario where a professing believer (even a leader in the church) walks away from the faith, there is a question as to whether or not the person involved here was saved in the first place. Look at 1 John 2:19 one more time:

19 They went out from us (They used to hang out at church), but they were not of us (they were never saved); for if they had been of us (if they had been saved), they would have continued with us. (Because disciples walk in the light) But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (they went to church – were even leaders in the church – but were not saved)

Both in today’s church culture and in the early church, people were claiming that faith in God and works of righteousness were not connected. There are people who take the doctrine of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone and they distort it.

  • Paul rejected these distortions in the churches he planted. In Romans (6:1), the people wanted to sin so that God’s grace would abound. Paul passionately corrects this abuse of doctrine.
  • James asks in his letter “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” James 2:14
  • John puts it this way in his epistle (2:4) “4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,”

A person does not get saved because of their good works (that is legalism) We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. However, salvation always produces good works. What you do is a test of who you are.

As we look into 1 John 2: 3-5 this morning, I want to answer these 3 questions from the text:

  1. What does it mean to “know” Jesus?
  2. How does knowledge relate to obedience?
  3. How is God’s love perfected in us when we keep His Word?

So let’s start with the first question:

What does it mean to “know” Jesus?

Knowledge of Jesus Changes the way that we live

“3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.” – 1 John 2:3

The Greek word for “know” is the word “ginōskō.” Ginōskō infers an intimate knowledge of something based on experiecne.

TANK ILLUSTRATION My dad served in the army as a tank mechanic. He has told me some stories about what it was like to drive in the tank and fire off the rounds and fly off a sand dune at 45 miles per hour in a machine that weighs several tons. I have some head knowledge about what it is like to be in a tank, but I don’t have ginōskō. My dad has ginōskō. He knows what it is like to be in an army tank – He has a personal and intimate knowledge based on his experiences.

There is something about really powerful about knowing Christ (ginōskō). It’s so powerful that produces obedience in the heart of the true disciple. There is power in this kind of knowledge. In fact, john is so certain that an intimate knowledge of Christ will produce obedience to Christ that he calls anyone a liar who claims to know Jesus and then disobeys His word.

  • Judas knew who Jesus was. He even hung out with Him every day for a while, but he didn’t didn’t ginōskō He didn’t have an intimate, personal knowledge of Jesus. In fact, Judas was more concerned with using Jesus to accomplish his own personal agenda than he was concerned with really knowing Christ.
  • Many secular scholars today know a lot of facts about Jesus and his Word, but it is not an intimate personal knowledge of Jesus. Knowing facts about the Bible does not produce eternal life!

A disciple of Jesus stops pursuing facts about Jesus and instead pursues a personal relationship with Jesus. TURN WITH ME TO PHIL 3. Having a ginōskō knowledge of the Savior means that we just want to know more of Jesus. We aren’t looking for more facts, but for a deeper and more personal knowledge of Him – of who He is.

It is a heart that cries out with Paul when he says in Philippians 3:

8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order 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 comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Paul was a man who knew Jesus and John says in 1 John 2:3 that anyone who longs for a relationship with Christ – who really knows Jesus – and who has had a real experience or a real encounter with the living God, never goes about living the same. BUT, that man is changed! That man is propelled from the depths where he was once living and has been brought to new heights through a relationship with the living God.

When you are brought from the filthy slums of sin into the glorious courts of the eternal righteous King, you never want to return to live in the slums again.

A man who has been changed through a relationship with the living Christ will never run back to the misery of the sin and darkness that he has been saved from. Knowledge of Jesus changes the way that we live.

Then how does this knowledge produce obedience in the life of the disciple?

How does knowledge relate to obedience?

Knowing God produces obedience because God is love

4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him – 1 John 2:4

John’s entire argument hangs on the certainty that a knowledge of God produces obedience. A person can’t really know Jesus and be content living in sin. There is a discontentment with sin in the heart of the follower of Jesus. Why is there discontentment? 1 See 2 reasons

  1. Because sin separates the disciple from God’s very best for his life and it robs him of joy. A disciple of Christ pursues joy in the Lord at all costs!
  2. Sin seperates us from a closer, intimate fellowship with God. The person who want to know God more intentionally pulls down anything that might be standing in the way of that pursuit of fellowship with God.

Consider what God’s word says in 1 John 4:16a. Turn there with me:

16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love,

If we know God, then we know this critical, fundamental trait about who God is at His most basic level: God is love.

  • God defines what love is.
  • God is the perfect embodiment of love.
  • God loves us perfectly

If you know God, then you know that God is love and you trust in that love. So, when God tells a disciple to do something, it is natural for that disciple to believe that God’s instructions are perfect and loving just like God is perfect and loving. A disciple believes that God’s commandments are God’s very best for his life and he willingly and even enthusiastically obeys God’s commands. And why wouldn’t he obey? These are loving and perfect instructions from a loving and perfect God that have been carefully crafted for the best interest of the disciple.

When someone looks at God’s loving and perfect instructions and says, “well I think I have a better way of doing things than God does,” then that person is in effect saying (with their life):

  • I know better than God does because God is neither perfect nor loving nor all-knowing. I know what’s best for me and God doesn’t know anything.
  • A God who really loved me would never ask me to do those things, so I’m going to do things my own way

Does a person who make those statements know a God who is perfect and all-knowing and who is the perfect embodiment of love? No. They don’t know the God of the Bible or they would follow His commands!

It is a lie when people says statements like “If you know the love of God, you don’t really have to worry about sin.” John is telling us that if we know God that we won’t want to continue in sin any longer but instead, we will have a deep desire to obey His commands and a godly grief when we stumble into sin. Turn over to 1 John 5:3

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

If we know God and believe in God’s love for us, then His commands are not a burden to us but they produce joy. David says in PS 119:16, “I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”

DESERT: It’s like we were stranded and lost in the middle of the desert. Hot and tired and dying from thirst. God’s commands are like a map in the wilderness that leads us to water and to food and eventually back to our eternal home – ruling and reigning with our King forever in paradise.

Forget this dry and weary land! I have the promise of eternity forever in paradise with my Lord and King Jesus Christ!

Knowing who God is produces obedience because God is love. If you turn away from the commandments of God because you think you will find more happiness in disobedience, then you don’t believe that God is love. Knowing God as a God of love naturally results in following his instructions.

That brings us to the last question:

How is God’s love perfected in us when we keep His Word?

When we love others, God’s love is completed in us

5a but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. John 2:5a

I think this verse is best interpreted by looking at James 2:22. The word for “perfected” is translated as “completed” in James 2:22. James says “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works.”

This passage simply means that our love for God is completed when our faith is put into action in the way we show God’s love to others. In other words, when we love others, God’s love is completed in us.

The purpose of God’s love for us is for us to show God’s love to other people. The reason God loves us is so that we can love others. God’s love is perfected in us when we reach the goal of loving others in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Faith is perfected by works and John’s point here is that people who love God, show God’s love to other people. So the simple question is, how are you loving others?

Life Application

Warren Wiersbe told a story that a congregation was singing an old hymn titled “For Whom are Your Praying.” The speaker that morning turned to another man on the platform and asked him who he was praying for. The man was caught off guard and said “I guess I’m not praying for anyone.”

Love for others goes beyond pious words. True love is always transformed into action.

  • Join our intercessory Prayer Team
  • Volunteer for the Special Olympics
  • Teach a Sunday School Class
  • Start a Bible Study in the break room at Lunch
  • Reach out to someone in your small group
  • (we will be announcing in the next few weeks a new partnership we are forming with CPS to help foster kids) Help a foster child or foster family.

If you have a thought of how to show someone love, just do it. Don’t analyse it, just do it. Good intentions don’t really count if they are not followed up with action. Commit to do some small thing this week to show God’s love to the people around you and in doing so, God love will be completed in you through your actions.

What good is our preaching in pulpits if we do not preach with our lives? Preaching the gospel with our lives and in our shops and in the kitchen and in the office and on the streets is the proclamation that will really show the masses the true love of our Savior. It is the proving ground to show whether or not our faith is real. It is the opportunity we have to perfect God’s love in us as we love others around us.

Teaching Outline

 

  • A person does not get saved because of their good works
  • Salvation always produces good works.
  • What you do is a test of who you are.
  • Knowledge of Jesus Changes the way that we live | 1 John 2:3. Phil 3:8-11
  • Ginōskō (Know) infers an intimate knowledge of something based on experience.
  • A man who has been changed through a relationship with the living Christ will never run back to the misery of the sin and darkness that he has been saved from.
  • Knowing God produces obedience because God is love | 1 John 2:4

God is love.

• God defines what love is.
• God is the perfect embodiment of love.
• God loves us perfectly
Psalms 119:16 “I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”

Knowing God as a God of love naturally results in following his instructions.
When we love others, God’s love is completed in us | 1 John 2:5a
James 2:22 “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works.”