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1 John
2:1
The Believer and Sin - Part 2
Wayne Barber
Do we have to deal with sin? Is sin
a reality in a believer’s life? Certainly we have already seen that it is.
"My little children," John says in 1 John 2:1, "I am writing these things
to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins…." Now stop right there.
It is very obvious that John knows that because we live in bodies of
flesh, we will still sin. But he has a stern message for all of us as
believers: how we look at sin and how we deal with it.
We know already that John is dealing with the Gnostic heresy. I want to
remind you of that because if you don’t know why a book is written, then
you cannot understand it in its context. John is very methodically led of
the Holy Spirit of God, bringing an attack against the false doctrine that
has gotten amongst these believers.
There are two things that I want us to look at. First of all is a
definition of sin. What is sin? If I’ve got to deal with it and it is very
clear that I do, then what is sin? In 1Jn 1:8-10 we have just seen the word
mentioned. It is used in 17 verses in the book of 1John, so it is kind of
on John’s mind. It is a very prominent word in the study of 1 John.
The Greek word for sin is hamartia. It comes from the hamartano, which
means to miss the mark. It’s like taking a bow and arrow and shooting at a
target. When you are shooting at something, you try to hit it. When you
miss it, that is what sin is like. I want you to get the idea, shooting at
a mark and missing the mark. That is what the whole thing is all about.
When you put that in light of the Christian’s life, the Christian’s walk
is when you shoot at something. Perhaps it is God’s mark for you but you
go about it the wrong way and you miss it. You miss what God had intended
in your life. It is when you choose to walk in darkness rather than light.
It is when the Word of God has something very specific to say to you about
your family, has something very specific to say to you about your
finances, has something very specific to say about your future and
everything else in your life, but you say, "I don’t need that Book. God,
you leave it there. I am going to do my own thing." You just missed the
mark. That is sin.
"You mean to tell me the Word of God plays that kind of role in my life?"
Oh, folks, how many times do we have to say it? James tells us that this
Book is not so much a map, it is a mirror (cp James 1:23-note
James 1:24-note
, James 1:25-note). Maybe you are not in the Word
of God daily. I don’t mean you have to spend three hours a day studying.
That is not what I am saying at all. But you are not studying it for
yourself. You are not trying to discern the things of the scripture for
yourself. Why would you want to do that? So that you can know the mark God
wants you to hit. You may be living in sin and not even know it.
One of the hardest things we are finding out about counseling is when
people come and say they want help. You take them to the Word, and they
either look at you like, "I never heard that before" or they look at you
like, "That is not my problem." To miss the mark is to miss what God has
set up, what God requires, the standard that God demands and commands of
every individual. When I choose to do it my way then I have sinned. By
that very choice I have missed the mark.
All men are born into sin (cp Ps 51:5-Spurgeon's
note, Ro 5:12 -
note). This is why we need the good news of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. There is not a man alive without Jesus Christ who can hit
God’s mark on anything. As a matter of fact, when he comes to church and
tries to do good, it misses God’s mark. When he wants to give to the
offering, it misses God’s mark. When he gives things to the church or
comes and cuts the grass or goes on a mission trip, anything he does, if
Christ is not in his heart it misses the mark God has for him. Every man
born of Adam and born since Adam without Jesus Christ in his life has
missed the mark and lives a life of missing the mark. So when you go to
work and find that you have an unsaved boss who treats you badly and sins,
don’t be surprised. That is all he can do. When you are around sinners all
they can do is sin. Why should we be caught off guard that way?
But a Christian is a little different. There is a standard God commands
and demands and the Law brought that out. That standard is a way of
living, the right conduct that no man apart from God can attain (cp Ro
3:21-note,
Ro 3:28-note). Some
people are trying to do it. They are trying to be good enough to get into
heaven. You can’t do that. It is like trying to climb up a ladder and the
rung at the top you never can get because as soon as you grab one there is
another one ahead of you and you can’t seem to get there. You try and you
try and you try but your whole life is missing the mark and you are going
the wrong way. But when you come to know Christ, God does something from
that point on by your willingness to obey in the power of His Spirit. Now
you can measure up and conform to what God requires. You couldn’t do that
before. Because of salvation, now you can.
Romans 1:17 (note) talks about the good news of God and it says, "For in it the
righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith." What in the world
is Paul talking about? What is the righteousness of God that is revealed
in the good news of God? The good news of God is the gospel. What is the
gospel? The good news of Jesus Christ. If I were preaching this message to
a group of people who didn’t know Jesus Christ, by now they would feel so
condemned because they would realize they can’t meet God’s standards. They
can’t be good enough to measure up to God’s standard, what God commands,
what God demands, that their whole life misses the mark. Then I would
bring them to the
gospel
(word study), the good news of Jesus Christ and the
righteousness of God is revealed in that good news. That is why we go
around the world to tell people. You are living in all this kind of
garbage. You can come up out of it. You can meet God’s standards but only
through Jesus Christ.
You see, the righteousness of God (Righteousness= dikaiosune see
study of adjective
dikaios and verb
dikaioo) incorporates three things. First of all,
it incorporates that standard of right conduct He demands. The word
"righteousness," dikaiosune, implies a standard that a holy God commands.
But it also means a standard of right conduct that only a holy God can
approve. Now understand what I am saying. There are a lot of men trying to
approve the righteousness of other men. No man can approve anybody’s
righteousness. God is the one who must put His stamp of approval on
righteousness. That is why Isaiah 64:6 says, "My righteousness is filthy
rags in God’s eyes." Men may say that it is good. God says that it is
filthy rags. God is the one who has to approve it.
So far that is not good news. Until you hear the bad news, the good news
is not good. The third thing that righteousness means there is that this
righteousness, this ability to conform to God’s standard, is what God
provides to the individual who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ His Son.
Oh, I tell you what, when this finally sinks into your mind, like it is
beginning to sink into my mind, it just makes you want to shout.
You see, we have been declared righteous (Ed: or "justified" =
dikaioo - word study). Look in Romans 10:10
(note)
(cp Ro 10:9-note). This
righteousness, this ability to conform to the standard that God commands
and demands in our life comes at salvation. Verse 10 says, "for with the
heart man believes (word
study on pisteuo)." The whole key is belief, bowing before Him, admitting
that you can’t conform to His standard, trusting in what Christ has done.
"Resulting in righteousness." Wow! Do you mean to tell me that now with
Christ living in me I can measure up? Yes, we have been measured in Him.
Now we can measure up. From faith to faith, His righteousness is revealed.
What does that mean? Faith is obedience and when I obey Him initially, God
enables me to measure to His standard. He justifies me, just as if I’d
never sinned. Now every time I say "Yes" to Him in the power of His
Spirit, then what God can do in my life is revealed. We see the
righteousness of God revealed in an individual who has believed in Jesus
Christ.
You may ask, "Why are you harping on sin?" I had better harp on it. I need
it and you need it. We don’t have an excuse anymore. We have been made the
righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, which means now in Him we can
conform to what God wants in our life. Have you ever heard somebody say,
"Oh, I am just human! I can’t do it!" No, it is not that you can’t, it is
that you won’t. If you are a believer you are just simply saying, "I don’t
want you, God, and I will not do what You tell me to do." That is sin, and
everything that results from that is missing the mark of what God commands
and demands of every individual.
As you see the righteousness of God built into those three things,
indirectly you are seeing the righteous character of God. He is the kind
of God that not only condemns and requires but He is the kind of God that
paid the ultimate price of sending His Son so that man could meet up to
the standard He requires. That is the kind of God that we serve. Sin is
missing the mark. Any time I choose not to obey Him or His Word, I have
missed the mark of what God requires and that is sin. To the believer it
is much more serious in one sense of the word. But if you are not a
believer, hell is the end result. That is serious. We are held accountable
as believers for the specific choices we make every day of our life. That
is what it means to deal with sin all the time because we are not going to
attain perfection. We are going to sin and dealing with that sin keeps us
aware of what we are not and who He is.
Let’s stop talking about generalities of sin. You say, "I don’t understand
what you are talking about. I hear you talking about missing the mark and
I hear you talking about sin. What is sin?" Okay, let’s just answer that.
First of all, is there any area of your life that you are not allowing the
Holy Spirit to control with His Word? Ephesians 5:18 (see
notes) says, "Be ye [being]
filled by the Holy Spirit of God." The word "filled" means controlled,
dominated by the Holy Spirit of God. Ask yourself the question, "Is there
anything in my life that I am not allowing the Holy Spirit of God, through
His Word, to control?" Is it an attitude? Is it something else?
Secondly, what about how you care for your body? 1 Corinthians 6:13 says
that our body is for the Lord. Is there any immorality? Is there any
sexual conduct that is not pleasing to the Lord that you are committing
and nobody knows about it? 1 Corinthians 6:15 shows us that sexual
promiscuity is strictly forbidden because the body is a member of Christ.
Let me explain to you what we are talking about. Adultery. God says that
is a choice you made. You are a believer. You don’t have to make that
choice. You made the choice and you have sinned. You need to deal with
that sin before God. Fornication before marriage. Sexual intercourse
before marriage. Homosexuality. Incest. Ephesians tells us that we are not
to let any kind of thing like that ever be named among the body of
believers. You can’t take these kinds of things lightly and claim to be in
fellowship with a Holy God. You can’t do it. Sin robs you of that
fellowship with God and maybe even your relationship if you have never
come to know Him. Sin is very serious.
Is there any area of impurity in your conduct concerning your body that
may not concern anybody else? That is usually the cop out. "What I do,
Brother Wayne, doesn’t effect anybody but me." Are you entangled in the
affairs of life that distract you from Christ? Are you so busy that you
don’t have time to get in the Word, sir? Are you so busy you can’t be the
spiritual leader of your family? Are you so busy making the almighty
dollar that you are not honoring your vow that you have made to the Lord
Jesus Christ? In 2 Timothy 2:4 (note) Paul tells Timothy, "Don’t be entangled
with the everyday affairs of life." In other words, you’ve got to live in
this world, but don’t let the world entangle you and choke out what God
wants to do in your life.
Why is it you can’t get men in a Bible study for more than about four
weeks before they drop out? Why is that? Why is it that a man will sit and
learn a computer manual, he will sit down and learn all the different
things about his business, he will sit down and read whatever it is, but
when it comes to the Word of God, he just doesn’t have time? "I am just
too busy. I have to work every day." That is sin in your life. How can you
even know you are walking with God if you are not in the Word of God? The
world just entangles us and sucks us under their current. Do you love the
world and the things of the world more than you love Christ?
In 2Ti 4:10 (note) Paul speaks of Demas. He deserted Paul because he loved
this present world. Have you robbed God by withholding from Him and His
work your time, your talents and your money? You need to read 2Co 8:3, 4, 5 sometime. It is an admonition to the church at Corinth.
The church at Macedonia didn’t have a dime, and they were giving and
giving and giving to an offering for the Jews over in Judea. Here is
Corinth, the richest church in the New Testament, and they wouldn’t give
anything. They were more self-contained. They would rather take care of
themselves than the cause of Christ. They were people robbing God.
Do you show love to your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?
Mt 5:43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48 (see notes
Mt 5:43;
44;
45;
46;
47;
48) tells you to do that. Or do you pick up the phone and see
who you can tell about it? Are you bitter? Do you lose your temper when
you don’t get your way? Do you hide behind your smile a hidden anger that
is vengeful but you don’t want anybody else to know about it? Ephesians
4:31, 32 (see notes
Ep 4:31;
32) says to be forgiving to one another, tender-hearted. Do you
indulge in idle talk and gossip? Proverbs 10:18 drills that to the wall.
Do you speak evil of others? 1Pe 3:9, 10 (see notes
1Pe 3:9;
10) speaks to you about that. Are
you irregular at assembling with believers for prayer and worship? Hebrews
10:25 (note) tells us not forsake that. A lot of people take it lightly, don’t
they? Hebrews 10:25 says "Forsake not the assembling of yourselves
together." Don’t you ever do it.
Do humility and gentleness and patience and forbearance characterize your
walk and behavior with others? Do you know what those words mean?
"Humility" means a proper attitude towards yourself. You don’t think of
yourself more highly than you think of somebody else. "Gentleness" means
your attitude towards God. It is the word "meekness." You have been broken
by the Spirit of God. You don’t have an ax to grind. "Patience" is your
proper attitude towards others. Long suffering. Do you know what that
implies? They are going to bug you. And do you know what forbearance is?
It is the ability to stand up against somebody else while the provocation
is going on and rather than kicking him out, you pray for him and hold him
up until the provocation is over. Does that characterize your walk? Or do
you get mad at any little thing, get critical, find your little group, and
say what you want to say to them? That is sin.
When are we going to start calling sin sin? Are you diligently seeking to
preserve the unity of the Spirit with your brothers and sisters in Christ
by making sure that you at all times are at peace with them? Ephesians 4:3
says we can’t produce unity. But if we don’t keep that line open of
forgiveness and peace, that is sin against God.
Are you a liar? I have run into some people over the years who are such
good liars they don’t know the difference between a lie and the truth. Do
you know anybody like that? They have lied so long about so many things
that they don’t know the difference between a lie and the truth. Are you a
thief? Is there anyone you have not forgiven? "Oh, if you knew my
circumstances you wouldn’t be saying that kind of stuff!" I am not saying
that kind of stuff. I am just trying to tell you what God requires out of
me as well as you. To refuse to do it is to miss His mark and that is sin,
period! That is sin. Oh, how loosely we take it. Sin is missing the mark
that God intends.
Over the years I have made this little statement. I don’t know where I
heard it:
Sin will take you
further than you ever intended to stray.
It will keep you longer than you ever intended to stay.
And it will cost you more than you ever dreamed you would pay.
That is sin. For any believer
to think for one second that they can get away with sin, that is a foolish
deception. Sin is something we have to deal with. It means to miss the
mark. It means to not conform to what God requires. We can now conform
because His Spirit energizes that and enables us to obey.
The second thing I want you to see is the disgrace of sin. I told you it
was used in 17 different verses. I just want to hit a few of them. John
doesn’t say that sin is a disgrace but implicit in that is the fact that
it is a disgrace, it is a shame to a Holy God that we would choose to sin
against Him. We’ve got to see it as a disgrace. I’ve got to see it as a
disgrace. I can’t start letting it get into my life where I don’t
recognize it anymore. Remember the garments in Ephesians? We choose to put
on the wrong garment or the right garment. That is what we are talking
about. The right conduct is the right garment energized by the Spirit of
God. The wrong garment is the wrong conduct energized by a wrong choice,
and it misses the mark of what God requires.
Well, the word "sin" or "sins" is found in 17 verses. Let me just show you
a few of them. We just read 2:1. Let’s go back and look at it again: "My
little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin.
And if anyone sins…," literally there it means to sin a sin. We have come
so far off center that what is normal now looks like it is subnormal.
The more we integrate the world into our lives, the less we begin to care
about what sin is. Then we make the mistake of calling anybody who is
convicted a legalist. Now a legalist is not a legalist because he is
convicted. He is a legalist when he takes his conviction and beats you
over the head with it. Let’s don’t kick him out of the kingdom because he
is convicted. That is where we all should be. It is not the intention of
God that we allow it in our life in any form.
"Sin" is in the aorist subjunctive. We are to never miss the mark of what
God wants. We are to always obey Him at any cost. Righteousness is the
ability to conform to what God requires. Sin is never the intention of
God. A sin is never excusable. It has to be dealt with.
In 1Jn 3:4, 5, 6 John picks up on it again. He says,
"Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is
lawlessness."
Now here we go. He does not want us
to sin a sin. We know we will because that is brought out in Scripture,
but that is not the intention of God. That is not what salvation made
possible in our lives. Secondly, for sure, it is not to be a habit in our
lives. "Practices sin," he says in verse 4. He says this is the lifestyle
of a lost person. "...also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness."
Now that word "lawlessness" (anomia
- word study) has the idea of living as if there is no standard
with which you are to be held accountable. Even though we are saved (this
is depicting a person who is not a Christian because he is living
lawlessly) we come awfully close sometime to thinking that there is nobody
we are accountable to, there is no standard that we are accountable to.
Yes, there is! God’s Word is the standard.
Well, verse 5 shows us why:
"And you know that He appeared in order to take away sin; and in Him there
is no sin."
In other words, the very
reason He came and lived on this earth was to take away the sin and make
it possible for us to live a life on a higher plain and live in a way that
conforms to His righteousness. Verse 6 reads,
"No one who abides in Him
sins; no one who sins [habitually] has seen Him or knows Him."
If you know
somebody who lives lawlessly like that and doesn’t ever worry about what
the Word of God has to say and yet still claims to be a believer, just
back off and pray because there is no signal in the Word of God that
person knows Christ at all. You can’t live habitually lawlessly and claim
to be a believer.
Look down in verse 8 of chapter 3: "the one who practices sin is of the
devil." Boy that is exciting; "for the devil has sinned from the
beginning." It was his very attitude that got him kicked out of heaven to
start with. "The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might
destroy the works of the devil." What is the works of the devil? Sin. When
Christ comes and deals with our sin we are able, in Christ, to live
differently.
In fact, sin is so serious that we are to be looking out for one another.
Look in 5:16 and 18. Obviously I am not covering all the verses. We will
do that as we study through 1 John. This is just an attempt to give us an
idea of what we are dealing with here. In verse 16 we read,
"If anyone sees his brother committing a sin."
That word "see" is the word eido. It
comes from horao, and it means you have to see a person actually commit
the sin. It doesn’t necessarily have to be overt. The Greek concordance
puts it under the word that means intuitively understand or perceive
something. In other words, you can be with somebody and you can sense in
your spirit that there is sin in that person’s life. Did you know that?
Not only can you sense it in them, but you know it in yourself. You can
sense the sin that is in somebody else, but it may not be an overt sin.
A brother
is sinning
A brother is sinning a sin. This is different from what John said in
chapter 3. In chapter 3 here is a man living lawlessly. Here it is sinning
a sin. In other words, every one of us has a weak problem in our life.
Whatever that weak problem is, it has a trap to it and if we are not
careful and abide in Him and walk in the light, we can easily be
entrapped. It may be the area of immorality. It may be the area of
covetousness and material things. It may be in the area of bitterness and
a critical spirit, but all of us have something that is a weakness to us.
Here is what he is talking about. Here is a brother, a Christian who is
falling into the trap of sin. If you become aware of it and if you
perceive it in your spirit, you have a requirement.
"He shall ask and God
will for him give life to those who commit a sin not leading to death."
I
can’t wait until we get there in chapter 5. I am kind of glad it is going
to be a while because I have to think a lot on it. But you know, all sin
brings about some type of death. This is not talking about eternal death.
For all of you who are saying, "I told you we would lose our salvation,"
that is not what he is talking about. There is no definite article at all.
That is not what he is talking about. But there is a death.
It can be a physical death. There can be a sin that causes death in a
person’s life. It is almost as if God looks down and says, "I am sick and
tired of you being a mockery to Me. I will take you home before I will
allow you to continue to live that way." Maybe it is that way and maybe it
is not, but it seems to be that way on the surface interpretation. When
you see a brother sinning a sin and obviously it is not leading unto death
because he is still living, you have a responsibility.
John says in verse 16,
"There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that
he should make request for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is
a sin not leading to death. We know that no one who is born of God sins;
but He who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him."
In other words, as we walk in that obedience there is a keeping that the
Lord Jesus gives to us. But what is the responsibility? Look in verse 16:
"If anyone sees his brother committing a sin he shall ask and God" will do
something. That is really what I wanted to say. I have a responsibility. I
am not to go to him first. I am to go to God first.
Matthew 18:15 picks up on that same thought. It tells us to go to him
privately if you saw him. Then it tells you to take a brother with you.
Then it tells you to make it public in the church so perhaps making it
public will somehow send a signal and the person will repent. Then if he
won’t repent treat him as if he is not even a believer. (Mt 18:16, 17)
You know, one of the things that has really bothered me in studying 1 John
is becoming aware of the fact of what I have to deal with. Most of the
time when you hear a message on sin you are thinking about somebody else.
That is the sad part of it. You think about people you don’t like, people
who don’t conform to the way you are. What about you? This is what John is
trying to get across. Sin is something that every believer is responsible
to deal with.
I pulled these verses out of a context, but we will look at them as we
study through 1 John. It will all fit together. The point is, He doesn’t
want a sin in my life. The point is for sure He doesn’t want habitual sin
and practice in my life because that means that I am not even a believer.
The point is, if I see my brother, I am responsible. I am responsible.
I have been thankful over the years when people have come to me. Not at
first, but after it has dawned on me that they love me and they are there
to help me, I can look back and see they are the people who probably
helped my growth more than anything else. I remember one year I was
visiting on church visitation night. I was in a real financial crisis at
that time and I picked a man as my partner who was a millionaire. We went
out to visit a few houses. We pulled up in a certain place and I said,
"You know, Tom, I just want you to pray for me." Yeah, right! What I want
you to do is write a check, but I didn’t tell him that. I told him about
my situation and I said, "I’ve got a real problem." After I told him he
looked at me and said, "Wayne, you don’t have a problem, you have a
crisis." Then he said, "Son, I know exactly what you are doing and that is
sin." I said, "What?" He said, "You are telling me all this stuff because
you want me to answer your problem. You are not willing to go to God and
let God deal with it and let God take care of your problem." Boy, that
stung me! But you know what? That was one of the best things that ever
happened to me because God began to show me, "Hey, big boy, is God your
provider or is He not?"
I am a manipulator in my flesh. What are you like? You are exactly the
same way. Every one of us are after Adam. If we are after our flesh we
will manipulate anything we can manipulate to get our way in the midst of
it. You can tell I am not real comfortable. I am not comfortable at all. I
don’t like dealing with sin. I don’t feel like I need to be telling you
about sin. We all need to be on our knees letting God speak to each of us.
I am no better than anybody else. I have not arrived! Until we learn to
see the seriousness of sin, all we are going to end up with down here is
conduct that we call right that falls so short of what God commands. It
ought to nauseate everyone of us.
Are we going to deal with our own sin? That is the key. I am responsible
to you if I see you sin. You are responsible to me when you see me sin.
Let’s remember that in the days to come. We are on equal ground with one
another. The Gnostic heresy is convenient today. It is being preached with
a different cover on it. But if you will come to what God says, we are all
responsible for flesh and for sin and we deal with it every day of our
life.
1 John 2:1-6
We Can Know That We Are
Believers!
Wayne Barber
Once I led a Bible study in a school
setting. We were kicked out of that school by a member of another
religious group who said we were teaching a certain kind of doctrine which
was strictly from the Word. He said, "Sir, you cannot teach people they
can know that they have eternal life if they are Christians. We don’t know
and we will not know until Jesus comes again." I said, "I beg your pardon.
Have you ever read 1 John 5:13?" I read it to him and he said, "Would you
read that again? I am not sure I have ever read that before."
We can know that we are believers, and I want us to see that. I want us to
see the confidence which we ought to have in confessing our sin. We have
seen the consequence, but what is the confidence? What kind of confidence
must I have when I confess my sin to a holy God? Look at 1 John 2:1: "My
little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin.
And if anyone sins, we [John includes himself] have an Advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
The apostle is very tender in his words, "My little children." It is
almost as if he is saying to them, "I have been around a little longer
than you have; and if you sin – and you will – I am not going to kick you
out of the family. I am still going to love you and I am still going to
encourage you. I am still going to be there to put my arms around you." He
tells them something very encouraging. He says, "Listen, when you confess
your sins you must know you have an Advocate with the Father who is Jesus
Christ, the Righteous."
The word
Advocate is the word parakletos. In older Greek it was used in
court settings. When someone was accused of something, someone would
voluntarily, not by demand, step from the crowd, walk up, take his place
beside the accused and speak on his behalf. He would speak in his defense.
That is exactly what John is talking about here. You see, in the courtroom
of heaven, God the Father is the Judge as he pictures Him here. And every
sin is subject to the judgment of God. God the Father is the one who sent
His Son into the world to die for sin. Therefore, He is the one who is
holding court here. When the devil runs to accuse us before the Father,
which is what he does day by day, then Jesus steps alongside of us, takes
His place and defends us. He speaks a word on our behalf. He is our
Advocate. The idea is of a defense lawyer and He is always speaking on our
behalf.
He is certainly qualified to be our
Advocate. It says that He is Jesus
Christ the righteous. Actually, a better translation is "Jesus Christ, the
Righteous One." By using the term "Jesus," His earthly name and "Christ,"
His resurrected name, he depicts the fact that He is the only one who
could ever stand in our behalf. He is the only human, being born of a
virgin, to live sinless on this earth, fulfilling every requirement of the
law. He qualified to be our substitute on the cross. There is a man in
heaven who is our representative. Every time we sin and then properly
confess that sin, He stands there and speaks on our behalf. Now I don’t
know about you but that makes me want to confess even that much more,
knowing I have someone who is going to speak on my behalf, someone who
knows that His blood has covered all my sin, whether it be past, present
or future.
This implies something very important. He knows my motive when I confess.
We need to understand this. He is the Righteous One. He is the one who
stands along beside us. He is the one who speaks on our behalf. But He
knows when we half-heartedly confess anything before the Father. So to
reap the benefit of confession, we have to make sure we understand who is
examining our hearts when we confess that sin before a holy God.
In a trial there is a defense team for the accused. Everything they know
is based on what he has told them. He says he is innocent and they come
before the public and say on his behalf that he is innocent. They have to
go on what he says. For all they know he may be lying to them. They can’t
really know his whole motivation because no man knows that except the man
himself.
That is different with our defense team. It is wrapped up in a Person. He
knows our motive. He knows our hearts. You don’t get away by running that
sin by Him and saying, "Oh, yes, by the way, I did that. You are right. I
confess it. I am so sorry." Then you go right on and do it again. He knows
half-hearted people when they bring sin before Him. But He is the
righteous one qualified to stand in our behalf.
Verse 2 will light your fire: "and He Himself." I like the way that is
translated because that is the way it is in the Greek, "He Himself," not
just "He." That emphasizes it even stronger. "He Himself is the
propitiation
[or satisfaction] for our sins; and not for ours only, but
also for those of the whole world." That means Honduras, America, or
wherever you go. It is referring to the sins of the whole world.
What does it mean to have the
propitiation for our sin? That is a big
word. Well, the word in the Greek is hilasmos. It is connected with the
blood that Jesus shed for us in verse 7. It says in verse 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." Let
me show you how it is connected. The word hilasmos comes from the word
hilasterion, which is the Greek word in the New Testament for what we call
"Mercy
Seat."
Remember, the Mercy Seat was that solid gold piece that sat on top of the
ark. What was in the ark? In the ark were the tablets of the Law. The Law
condemns all men, but on top of that was the Mercy Seat and God could look
at man, not because He had fulfilled the Law, but because of the blood
that was sprinkled on that Mercy Seat. When the High Priest would come in
on the
Day of Atonement, he would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice on
that Mercy Seat and immediately God said, "I will meet you right there. I
will fellowship with you in the blood at the Mercy Seat."
The Apostle Paul picks up on this in Romans 3:25 (note) and says, "Jesus is our
Mercy Seat." It is through Him and His shed blood that we can enter into
fellowship with God. His blood is not just a payment for our sin. It is
the bridge that establishes a brand new relationship with God. This, once
again, nails the false doctrine of
Cerenthus. Cerenthus said He was not a
man. He couldn’t have been a man. Well, how did He bleed? He had to have
had a body. He had to have been a man. It was His shed blood that became
the basis upon which we now can fellowship with God. This is the good news
that we need to have, the confidence when we got before Him. His blood has
covered all sins. There is no sin you can commit or that I can commit that
His blood cannot cleanse.
That is the good news of what it means to have Jesus as an Advocate. He is
an Advocate who loves us. He has proven that. He came and died for us. He
is a man, the God-man. He is at the throne. He represents all of us. When
we confess our sins properly, He is the one who steps in and makes a word
for us with the Father to let Him know that what He did on the cross has
already covered that sin and will cover every sin that we commit while we
are here on this earth. The consequence of confession of sin is the
cleansing, but oh, the confidence of confession is that we have someone
there who loves us and who has paid the ultimate price for us. He is the
righteous one and when the devil comes to accuse us, He steps alongside
and speaks a word on our behalf in our defense. He intercedes for us
day-by-day. He died for us and He is our Advocate before the Father.
When you find a Christian who won’t confess sin, it becomes a little bit
suspect as to whether or not he is a Christian. Maybe he doesn’t seem to
understand what he was saved from and what he was saved to. Perhaps he
doesn’t understand. 1 John would be a great book for that person to read.
1 John 5:13 says, "These things are written that you might know that you
have eternal life." If you find somebody who is trying to live in sin and
not confessing that sin, it is pretty obvious something is amiss, either
in their understanding or in what they profess. Maybe they don’t really
have what they profess.
We are really ending up in verse 2 what we have been talking about in the
believer in sin. I am trying to accomplish two things. He moves out of
that. In verse 3 he says, "And by this we know that we have come to know
Him." How do we know that we have come to know Him? How do we know that?
Can you know it? Certainly you can know it. But how can we know that we
have come to know Him?
Well, first of all, one of the best ways that I can know that I have come
to know Christ, that I have experienced Him intimately, that I have had
the experience of salvation in my life is by the fact that I am willing to
obey His commandments. I am not only willing, but I feel the
responsibility in my heart of obedience towards Him. There is something
that happens to a believer. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if any
man be in Christ, he is a new creature." What is different about
him? If you will study the New Covenant in the Old Testament (see
New Covenant in the Old Testament), we have a
brand new heart. God’s Spirit now lives in my spirit and God’s Spirit in
me motivates me with a will to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. I have to work
at not wanting to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. I have been changed because
of the process of salvation.
So one of the ways you know that you are believer is by the fact that not
only do you obey, but you have that something inside of you that compels
you to obey. It is the Spirit of God. It is the brand new heart that God
has given to us.
John says in verse 3, "And by this we know that we have come to know Him,
if we keep His commandments." The first verb is in the present tense. By
this we can know and always know...constantly, you never doubt it. "That
we have come to know Him" is perfect tense. That means there has been a
time back in my life when I experienced Him as my own and came into
intimacy with the Father through His Son Jesus Christ.
The word for "know" there caught my attention. It is the word ginosko.
That is a knowledge that you can have but something else has got to happen
first. It is not a given. It is something that I can know every day of my
life if something else is there. That is what he says. We have to keep His
commandments. Now let me share this with you real quickly. Maybe you are
doubting your salvation. I can say without question there is an area of
your life that you are disobedient in. There is something that you have
not taken before the Lord. There is something that you are harboring in
your life. Because when you are keeping His commandments, present tense,
if you are living that way, you are not going to have any doubt. You are
knowing and you are knowing and you are knowing. It is a day-by-day
experience. But the moment I choose not to do that, and I choose to let
sin stay in my life of any degree, immediately the doubts begin to come in
my life.
"If we keep His commandments" is in the present subjunctive. Subjunctive
means it is conditional. Not every believer is going be to keeping it all
the time. When you are not keeping His commandments that opens up the
windows and the doors of doubt to get into your life. Most of the people
who are doubting their salvation, if they are truly believers, are people
who are not willing to obey Christ in some area of their life.
I remember one night my daughter called me from college. She said, "Daddy,
I need to talk to you." I said, "What, Stephanie?" She said, "Daddy, I
don’t think I am saved." Now I am her father and I know Stephanie. If
Stephanie is not saved I am the Pope of Rome. I said, "Stephanie, what do
you mean you don’t think you are saved?" "Dad, I confessed a sin in my
life yesterday and I want to do that same sin today. I must not be saved."
I said, "Stephanie, I don’t think you quite understood this thing about
confession yet. Tell me some other things that are going on in your life."
She said, "Oh, Dad," and she began to give me about a three week long
history of some things that were happening. One of her friends said
something about her, something happened in a classroom one day, she didn’t
make the grade she thought she was going to make. I think at that time she
was dating, and her boyfriend hadn’t called her at a certain time, or
whatever. But when I added up everything that was going on in her life, it
became obvious why she was doubting.
Sometimes we get overwhelmed by circumstances in our life. Sometimes we
get our focus off of Jesus. We get our focus out of His Word. Why is it we
are not consistently, constantly, knowing that we have come to know Him?
It is because we are not consistently, moment-by-moment living and walking
in His Word. The very moment we stop looking at the Lord and start looking
at the lions, we are overwhelmed. Some of the "being overwhelmed" is the
doubts that come according to our salvation. If you are doubting something
about your salvation, ask yourself the question, "Where is it in your life
that you have not yet learned to surrender to God and learned to choose to
obey Him in a consistent manner?"
John says, "We know that we have come to know Him, present tense." We are
knowing all the time. We are learning. We understand. There is no doubting
coming in.
The word "keep" is the word
tereo
(word study). It comes from the word that means a
warden, one who guards, one who keeps an eye on, one who therefore obeys.
So it is not just a mere mechanical obedience that he is talking about
here. The Pharisees did that. He is talking about a person who senses the
responsibility. There is a compulsion within him to obey the Lord Jesus
Christ. If he is not doing that, he understands that something is amiss
because there is something new about him. The moment you get saved, God’s
Spirit enters into your spirit and He begins to will and to work in your
life as a believer. Obeying Christ with a sense of responsibility, awe and
respect is the first identifying mark that John gives of a true believer.
The word "know" is to know experientially. There is another truth involved
in this. When we received Christ into our hearts through repentance and
faith, we know Him experientially. You just don’t know about Him, you know
Him. You are intimately acquainted with Him. His Spirit and your spirit
have meshed together. You know Him. You have been birthed again into the
kingdom of God. A person who is birthed into His Kingdom as we said,
senses a responsibility, senses a need to obey Him because it is God’s
Spirit within him, leading him to think that way. Those who are habitually
unrighteous can never say they have known Him. They cannot do that. You
cannot live habitually in sin and never sense the obligation and
responsibility to obey Christ and claim to be a Christian.
But here is the double truth. Those of us who have known Him, who know
Him, and are walking in obedience to Him, not only do we know Him
experientially, but we are knowing Him day-by-day, more and more, deeper
and deeper than ever before. There is a beautiful truth here. Paul says in
Philippians 3:10 (note), "I want to know Him." Now, wait a minute Paul, you are
the greatest preacher in the New Testament. You want to know Him? He said,
"I want to know Him. I want to experience Him. I want to know the power of
His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering." You see, there is more
and more and more of experiencing Him and it is to always to the degree
and to the measure that we are willing to obey. Consistent obedience is
the mark of those who have known Him and are knowing Him daily through
that obedience.
How do you know if you are a Christian? Look at your life. Do you ever
feel like you need to obey God? Do you feel He has a hammer over your head
ready to wipe you out if you don’t, or is there something inside that
says, "Hey, I owe this. It is an obligation. I have a sense of awe as to
who He is. There is something in me that pulls me and compels me to obey
what His Word says"? Well, you didn’t put that there. God put that there.
That is the beautiful nature of God that is now within us that motivates
us and compels us. That is the heart of God beating inside of a believer.
Verses 4-6 show us that it is our walk that determines our talk. A lot of
people say a lot of things. It is not how loud you shout. It is not how
high you jump; it is how straight you walk when you come down.
The Apostle John wants you to know something if you think it is just all
the external things that are going on in your life. He says it is your
walk that determines your talk. Well, in verse 4 he says, "The one who
says, ‘I have come to know Him’ [I have come to experientially know Christ
Jesus. They probably said it very devotionally, just moved to tears] and
does not keep His commandments," does not love His Word. That is part of
keeping His commandments, loving His Word. If you are a guard, if you are
a warden, you want to make sure you are guarding what God says. If you
don’t have time for the Word of God in your life, there is something
amiss. "The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His
commandments, is a liar."
Excuse me, John, you are a little tough. Can’t you say that a little bit
nicer? Okay – "and the truth is not in him." The word "not" there means
not in any way, shape or form is any truth in that man at all. "Good
night, do you mean to tell me that there are people who have been members
of the church for years, but they have never been born again?" Absolutely.
Absolutely. Joining a church won’t do a thing for you in heaven. As a
matter of fact, we look at church membership as accountability. I had
better not speak for everybody else. But I look at it as accountability. I
am already in the body of Christ, but I need to be accountable, and
accountability is membership. I can’t find membership anywhere in the New
Testament, but I think it is important in our culture. Somebody needs to
be accountable to something and it is the Word of God. It is not the
elders who hold us accountable. The elders are held accountable by that
same Word.
There are a lot of people who just go around and say, "Oh, I am saved. I
am a Christian." When did you get saved? "Thirty years ago." You did? What
is God doing in your life today? "I got saved thirty years ago." Well,
what is He doing in your life today? "I got saved thirty years ago. Don’t
you know I am saved?" Well, not really, let me go home and watch how you
live to find out whether you are saved or not.
That is exactly what John says. You have to remember what John is doing
here. The whole system of
Gnosticism made people not responsible for the
way they lived because they were spirits living inside of a carton that
was evil. You have heard that preached even today. It is just Gnosticism
with a different shade on it. Watch how a person walks. Don’t listen to
what he says. Watch how he walks. He will tell you whether or not he truly
is a believer. Our walk speaks a whole lot louder than our talk (See
notes on James 2:14-23 - faith and works).
John shows those who talk the talk, but then, secondly, those who walk the
walk. He says in 1Jn 2:5,
but whoever keeps His word [on a continual basis], in him the love of God
has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.
What does it mean for the love of
God to be perfected? The word "perfected" has the idea of fulfilled. It is
God accomplishing what he wants to do with His love. There are two things
Jesus came to do, one was to die for our sins, the other was to now
indwell believers. His love is not fulfilled until that can take place. If
a man rejects His love and rejects His Word, then His love is unfulfilled.
God’s love in us is what changes us day by day. For it to be fulfilled a
person has to respond to the gospel. Then a person walks in light of that
in obedience in the power of the Holy Spirit (see
Obedience of faith).
That is when His love is fulfilled in you and me.
1Jn 2:6 continues,
"the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same
manner as He walked."
That little word "ought," opheilo
(study
on related word opheiletes),
is in the present tense and it refers to an obligation. There is never a
place and there is never a time when I don’t sense the duty and obligation
and responsibility to walk according to what God’s Word has to say. When
that has disappeared in your life you had better check it out to see if
you know Christ or not. We are not talking about a system of religion
where you pump yourself up in your own self-determination to do something.
We are talking about a total change, a birth, where the Holy Spirit of God
has given you a brand new heart. He lives in you now and He is there to
will and to work. He is the one causing us to want to obey, causing us to
sense the responsibility of obedience.
"To walk as He walked." That is a powerful phrase. There are two words for
"walked" here. The first word for "walk" is the word
peripateo
(word
study), which
means to walk about, wherever you go, whatever you do. The second word is
a different word. It is the word that means to walk according to a
pattern. What John is saying here is on a daily basis, on a consistent
basis, there is something in me as a believer that makes me sense the duty
of walking as He wants me to walk as He walked.
Now how did Christ walk? Look in John 5 and he shows us how He walked: as
the God-man. He speaks here as the Man. Paul says in Philippians 2:5, 6,
7, 8, 9, 10 (see
notes) that He
submitted Himself and became in the form of a bond-servant (word
study) and was
obedient unto death. That is how Jesus walked. John 5:19 says,
Truly,
truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is
something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these
things the Son also does in like manner.
In other words, He submitted
Himself absolutely in obedience to His Father. Even though He was equal to
Him, as the Man He submitted Himself in obedience. We are to walk as He
walked. How did He walk? He walked in full submission to His Father. As
Jesus was to His Father, we are to be to Jesus.
How do you know when a person is saved? I watched for something in my
children when they said, "Daddy, I received Jesus in my heart." You know,
I watched them. It’s like the old pastor who was preaching one day. He
gave a beautiful message and his daughter walked down weeping and gave
herself to Christ and asked Jesus to come into her heart. He didn’t get
excited at all. One of the old deacons walked up to him and said, "Man, I
can’t understand it. Your daughter comes to receive Christ and you don’t
even get excited." He said, "Listen, I have been around for a while. When
I start seeing the Father treat her as His child, then I will get
excited."
You see, there is something that happens when you get saved. There is
something that happens within. Obedience is not some mechanical thing that
you do just so you can get the privileges and the perks. Obedience is
something that you are divinely motivated to do from within. It is His
Spirit in you. His Spirit in you will always let you know, "This is what
God wants and this is not what God wants." You still have a will to choose
against that, but the way that you know that you are a believer is that
you sense the responsibility, you sense the calling, you sense the
awesomeness of God, you sense the fact that you must obey Him. If that is
not there, there is something missing somewhere in your life.
Can we know that we are believers? Yes, we can. You can know it every day
and never doubt it if you are walking in submission and obedience to what
God’s Word and God’s will is in your life. When we live in it, that shows
us without any question in our minds that we are His.
Confession of sin is an act of obedience. It doesn’t mean you are always
going to do it right. But the moment you do it wrong, you know what you
need to do. You need to get to Him. You have an Advocate with the Father.
Get to Him and make sure your confession is with repentance. When you do
that the Lord in you will stand up for you and you can continue to know
that you are in the faith.
Do you know anybody right now who is living as if they don’t even know God
and yet they profess to know Christ? Do you have anybody in your family or
in your neighborhood? Do you know anybody who says they are a Christian
but aren’t living that way? Doesn’t it put a dark cloud in your mind? I
tell you what it does for me. Rather than assume they might be a Christian
and just not know, I go ahead and assume they are not a Christian and
begin to pray for them that God would begin to do a super work of
salvation in their heart.
How can I know that I am a believer? Something in me compels me to obey
the Lord Jesus Christ. I may not always do it, but I am miserable when I
don’t. And I don’t doubt my salvation when that is operating in my life on
a consistent basis. I don’t doubt it. Because that conviction of sin and
the compulsion to obey Him keeps me understanding that I am obviously His.
I have told my kids one of the things that helps me the most is that when
I sin, the conviction I sense is one of the best ways I know that I am one
of His. I was in another city not long ago in a meeting and I had an
afternoon free so I decided I was going to go see a movie. Well, I don’t
know enough about movies anymore to know what is good and what is not
good. I picked one that I thought would be okay. I picked out some of the
actors in it and I thought it would be alright. I haven’t walked out of a
movie in a long time, but when I went in, sat down and that thing started
I saw the twist that thing was going to take and something inside of me
said, "Get up and get out of here. You are not a part of this. This is not
in your life. Move and move now!" Where did that come from? You think you
don’t program yourself to be that. That is the Holy Spirit living in your
life and He will let you know to obey.
Now, you may not do it. I did. I got up and left. It cost me! I hate that
part of it. You may not do it, but if you don’t do it you will sit there
and you will sense the conviction of almighty God on your life saying,
"This is not what you are. And you don’t need to be here." If that is not
in your life, I would check it out. Do you even know Jesus Christ at all?
It is not some religion you give your allegiance to. You are birthed into
a body and the Holy Spirit of God lives in you. If you try to fake it,
your talk and your walk will not match and everybody else will know.
Hopefully we will all know whether or not we are in the kingdom of God.
1 John 2:7-11
The Believer and Relationships
Wayne Barber
Have you ever noticed that one of
the most identifying marks of a believer is not how loud he can shout or
how high he can jump, but it is evidenced by the way he lives? It is
evidenced by his relationships. That is a principle that follows
throughout the New Testament. Galatians says the fruit of the Spirit
working in a person’s life is love. Immediately you find when you are
walking rightly with God your relationships become what God orders. We are
going to see that loving our brother is evidence that we know the Lord
Jesus Christ, that we are walking in the light in which He is.
Now remember this, 1 John is a book of contrasts to show the people who
are of the faith and to show the people who are not of the faith. There is
one thing to remember as you study 1 John. We must remember as he draws
these distinctions, a believer by his own choice can choose to walk in the
darkness; a believer by his own choice can choose not to love his brother.
But if we choose to sin, if we choose to walk in the darkness, if we
choose not to love our brother, then our testimony to the world that we
know Jesus Christ becomes bogus at that point. The world looks at us and
says, "Wait a minute. This is the way we live. You couldn’t know Christ.
You are in the darkness. You are not supposed to be in the darkness."
There is a fine line that you have to draw. Is a person saved or is he not
saved? If he is walking in the darkness, does that mean he is not saved or
does that mean he is a Christian who has just chosen to walk over in the
darkness? Remember, a Christian can sin. He can step over into the
darkness, but he cannot live habitually in the darkness and claim to know
Christ. We have already established that in 1 John. It will come up again
in chapter 3.
So there is a fine line as you go through 1 John. He draws the contrast.
Yes, a believer can sin. We know that. But he cannot live that way
habitually. That is what John, I believe, is trying to draw out. The
Gnostics said they were the enlightened ones. John says, "Do you want to
know who the enlightened ones are? Look at their obedience to God. Look at
them and how they deal with sin. Look at them in their relationships and
you are going to see who the true enlightened ones are. You will see who
the True Light is. It is not some mystical knowledge. It is Jesus who is
the Life and the Light of the world."
We must test the confessions of those who say, ourselves included, who say
they know Christ. In 1 John 2:7 notice what he says:
Beloved, I am not
writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have
had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have
heard.
John wants them to know that what he is about to write is not
something new to them. He uses the word
kainos (word
study), which
is qualitatively new. In other words, I am not writing something to you
that is qualitatively brand new. It doesn’t come to you as a surprise. It
is not something you have never heard of before. As a matter of fact, what
he is saying is, "The commandment that I am writing to you comes out of
the Old Testament. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you. The command to love
your brother, which we are about to get into, is not something new. Why,
it is an old commandment. Not only did I write to you in my gospel, but it
is all the way back in the Old Testament." In its simplest form, the
command to love one another is found in Leviticus 19:18 where it says,
Love your neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord.
One day Jesus was asked, "What is
the greatest commandment?" He quoted that verse as the second greatest. He
said the first greatest commandment is in Deuteronomy 6:5,
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all
your strength.
But the second greatest commandment,
He said, was the one found in Leviticus 19:18,
Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
So this is not something new, loving
our brother, loving our neighbor. It is not something new. It is in the
Old Testament.
In John 13:25 Jesus spoke of believers when he said,
"By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, that you love one
another."
So John
says, "This is nothing new that I am writing to you. As I am contrasting
those who are truly of the light and those who are of the darkness, what I
am saying to you is nothing new."
But look at what he says in verse 8:
"On the other hand [or again], I am
writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because
the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining."
Now
wait a minute. He uses the word
kainos (word
study) again, which means qualitatively
new. He just said he wasn’t writing something qualitatively new. Then he
says in verse 8 that I am writing something qualitatively new. Come on,
John, make up your mind. Is it new or is it not new? What is he trying to
say?
Well, he says, "which is true in Him and also in you." You see, there is
something qualitatively new about this commandment. Even though they were
told to love one another in the Old Testament and this is not something
new, this is not something foreign to them, they have already been told
that, it has taken a different dimension in Him. In other words, Jesus
came and through His teaching and by His example He raised that
commandment, the standard of that commandment of love one another, to a
standard no man had ever heard before. It was qualitatively new in its
emphasis. It wasn’t a new commandment in the sense of loving one another,
but in the way they were to love one another, to love "as I have loved
you".
What is happening here? If I am of the light, if I am enlightened, if
Jesus is in my life, who is the Light and Life of the world, and if I am
daily walking in His light, then something is happening to prove the fact
that He lives in me. It is putting out darkness that is around me. Look in
verse 8 again: "because the darkness is passing away, and the true light
is already shining." Who is the true Light? John tells us in chapter 9;
Jesus is the Light of the world. Now where is He shining? He is shining in
people who are His own, people who are saved. When I choose to walk
obediently and deal with sin, which we have already seen in 1 John, then
something happens to me. It is like He turns on His light in me and the
evidence of that light being in me is not some glow that I have. It is the
love for people that flows out of me. That is His light shining in this
world through people who are believers. To me the context is a beautiful
picture of what he is saying. The light of God’s love in you and in me is
putting out the darkness of hate that is all around us. The darkness is
passing away.
Now you can look at that in many ways. We know that the world, because of
sin, plunged us into the fact that we have a corruptible body. I know that
every day I live, every breath I take, I am getting closer and closer and
closer to an incorruptible body. Are you excited about that? I mean, one
day we are going to die and one day we are going to have a new body. Jesus
is coming for the church. He is going to glorify us. The darkness is
passing away. There is going to come a day when the world is going to be
absolutely perpetrated by light. Not only that, because of Adam’s sin, the
world was plunged into corruption and it is getting more and more corrupt.
But there is coming a day when that will pass away. There is a day that is
coming when God is going to put out all that corruption and God is going
to bring His Kingdom to this earth.
But also one of the other consequences of man’s sin was the immoral way
man treats other men. If you are believer you can’t habitually live like
the world lives treating one another. You can’t do it. He says, "It is My
life in you. You can’t do it. It is My Light in you shining in this world,
and that light shining in you will put out the darkness of the hate that
is all around us." You know, it is incredible to me how you can’t get lost
people to understand this, and yet at the same time it is understandable
why you can’t. They don’t have minds that can think clearly. The leaders
of our country need to just sit down and understand the need for all
mankind is Jesus Christ. When you get a man saved, he is delivered from
the darkness. Now the Light is in him. He is in the Light. He has been
made light, Ephesians says. Now as he walks in that Light, the love that
God is loving him with and has loved him with begins to flow out of him
and around him. The hate is being put down. The darkness of hate is being
put down. If you will just follow the context, that is what John seems to
be saying, that even though we are in the world of darkness, the Light
that is in us is putting down the darkness of hate that is around us.
There is a contrast here. Who is of the Light and who is of the darkness?
Many people say, "I am walking in the light." Look at their lifestyle.
Look at their relationships. It will speak loudly as to whether or not
they are truly of the light or they are of the darkness.
There are three things I want you to see in verses 9-11. I want us to kind
of look and see what John is trying to bring to the surface. You know, we
have to test the confessions of people. Remember, it is not how high you
jump and how loud you shout, it is in your relationships. It is in your
relationships.
First of all I want us to look at a description of hate in 1Jn 2:9: "The
one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the
darkness until now." John uses the present tense here, "the one who keeps
on saying." There are three times that is used in chapter 2. Go back to
1Jn 2:4: "The one who keeps on saying, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does
not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth in no way is in him."
Look down at verse 6: "the one who keeps on saying he abides in Him ought
himself to walk in the same manner as He walked." If you are going to say
that, let your walk match your talk. Then again in verse 9, "The one who
keeps on saying he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the
darkness until now."
The Greek word for hate is miseo. I want to show you a description of what
this hate is. Can a believer hate someone? Certainly they can. If they
choose to walk in the darkness, this is the consequence of darkness. If
you walk in light you don’t have to worry about the consequence of
darkness. However, if they live habitually that way, it makes their
confession that they know Christ bogus and it may be that they don’t know
Him. Continue to remember, there is a fine line that we are walking as we
are talking about these truths. Luke 6:22 reads, "‘Blessed are you when
men hate you.’" What are they going to do when they hate you? There are
three things that Jesus brings out here: "and ostracize you, and cast
insults at you, and spurn your name as evil for the sake of the Son of
Man."
"I am worried. Do I hate my brother? Do I really have hate within me?"
Well, I don’t know. Let’s examine it. What does the word "ostracize" mean?
It is the word aphorizo, which comes from apo, away from, and horizo, to
define something, to draw a line. When I hate somebody, when I am walking
in darkness, I draw a line and simply say, "I am never crossing that line
to associate with you. I hate you. I will not associate with you." That is
what hate is. Hate always ostracizes people whereas love pulls them in. It
is the exact opposite. So hate ostracizes someone. That is when we draw a
line and refuse to associate with them.
When I was in youth work we had a basketball tournament in Memphis. I
remember, we had a great time. They asked me to come back and do a camp
for them and I did. The first night I gave an invitation. I opened it up
to anyone who wanted to respond and a precious, black boy came walking
down the aisle with tears just streaming down his face. He said, "Brother
Wayne, I have never in my life given my heart to Jesus Christ. I want to
receive Jesus in my life to be my Lord and my Savior." He got saved at
that camp. I want to tell you, that one boy getting saved to me was worth
the whole trip and everything else that happened all week long. It seemed
to set a climate for the whole week.
Well, a few months later, the fellow who was the youth man at that
particular church called me. He said, "Wayne, let’s have a Christmas
tournament. Let’s bring my team down and get your team together and get
two other churches over there. We will have a ball. We will sleep in the
gym. We will have cookouts. We will just have a great time and play
basketball over the weekend." I said, "Sure." He said, "Wayne, do you
remember the guy you led to Christ at the youth camp?" I said, "Yeah, how
is he doing?" He said, "Super. He is on our basketball team." I said,
"Great." He said, "Wayne, I know how you feel, but how does your church
feel about having a black man in your church?" I said, "Certainly, man, if
they love God they don’t see color." He said, "Well, Wayne, will you do me
a favor? Will you talk to your committee before we go ahead and plan
this?" I called my committee together the next night and said, "Guys, we
are going to have a tournament." They said, "Wonderful. Super. What are we
going to do?" I told them all the things and began to share with them.
They thought it was the greatest idea. I said, "There is one more thing
that I need to let you know but I am sure it is not going to be a problem
to you, but they asked me to ask you. There is a precious black boy I led
to the Lord when I was down there and he is on their team. Certainly it is
alright for him to come on in and be in the tournament, isn’t it?" You
know the rest of the story. The chairman of that committee said, "What! We
will never let a black man walk in this church!" They made me cancel the
tournament.
That stuck in me for a long time. I could tell you other stories about
people who sit in churches like ours, people who sit on committees and
make decisions, people who say they are missionaries, people who say they
are believers but won’t allow a black person to get in their eyesight. You
had better check out to see if you are saved if that attitude is in your
heart. I mean it! God does not look at color. God sees people. People who
draw those little lines, who step back and say, "I am not going to
associate with you," have nothing more than pure hatred in their heart. If
they are a believer, they are walking a fine line from God taking them out
of here to keep them from making a mockery out of Him. I would be
venturing to say they are probably not even a believer.
That is hate. That is racial hate. There are other kinds of hate. There is
hate when you have bitterness between somebody who has wronged you and you
won’t associate with them. You won’t talk to them. You won’t even sit on
the same side of the church they are on. You draw a line and say, "I
refuse to associate with you." Is there anybody like that in your family?
There is family hate. There are families that won’t even talk to each
other, relatives that won’t even call one another. They have drawn a line.
What does that say? John says, "We are making a contrast here. These
people have come in here and said they are enlightened. Who are they? Here
is what it means to be enlightened. A believer deals with sin. A believer
is obedient. But a believer has relationships that turn nobody away. He
accepts; he doesn’t repulse. That is hate."
The second thing in Luke 6:22 that Jesus uses for hate is that they will
cast insults at you. This is to your face. To reproach, to defame, to
assail with abusive words. You see, hatred at some point, shows itself
with words meant to insult and to inflict pain, to verbally treat someone
without any respect for them whatsoever. Have you ever been in a church
business meeting filled with tension? Somebody gets up and begins to
disparage somebody and points a finger at them and begins to cast insults
at them without any respect for them as a human being? Have you ever
witnessed that? That is hate. That made their testimony that they are a
Christian bogus to this whole world. This whole world laughs at that kind
of thing because that is the way they live. They may have been Christians,
but I wouldn’t give you a whole lot of credibility for it. They could be.
That is what I said. It is a fine line we are walking here, but if they
are living habitually that way, John says no way.
Thirdly, they spurn your name as evil. Ekballo, means to cast out. Ek,
means out of, and ballo, means to cast. The idea is to reject something.
It’s like you had something in your body and your body rejected it and
cast it out. That is the idea. It is the same as to slander someone, to
speak against you falsely and spurn your name. Hate will cause you to tear
somebody else down to make yourself built up. You see, one of them is to
cast it in your face. The other one is to say it behind your back.
You say, "You mean to tell me that when I sit in the privacy of my home
and I want to tear somebody down, that means that I hate them?" Yes.
That’s hate. There is no in between ground here. You are either loving
them or hating them. We don’t seem to understand that. If we are not
committed for their best, if we are not committed to pay whatever price is
necessary for their spiritual benefit, then that is hate. And hate is a
signal that you are walking in darkness. You may be a Christian. I am not
going to cross that line. But John says that is the picture of those who
are not. They don’t have any light in them at all. They are walking
continuously in darkness. That is a definition of hate. John shows that as
the first identifying mark of a believer, as we see a believer and his
relationships.
Secondly, let’s look at the danger of not loving your brother. This is in
2:10. You don’t see it right off, but I am going to sort of sneak in the
back door on this one. "The one who loves his brother abides in the light
and there is no cause for stumbling in him." The present tense again is
used. It is talking about somebody who loves and continues to love his
brother. It is not a one time "I love you." It is a "loving" of his
brother. It is a lifestyle. He is the one in which there is no cause for
stumbling.
There is safety in constantly loving our brother. What is the safety?
There is no cause for stumbling. The word for "stumbling" there is the
word skandalon. Scandal comes from that. It is the word that refers not to
a trap that captures you, but it refers to the trigger that snaps the
trap. There is a certain trigger which causes the trap to shut. It is not
talking about the trap itself as much as it is talking about the trigger.
In other words, you are going to pull the trigger on a trap that is
already set if you choose not to love your brother. There is a trap there,
and that trap will imprison you and that trap will injure you and may
wreck your life like you have never known before when a believer chooses
not to be consistent in loving his brother.
Let me show you how that happens. There is a trap set for us all the time.
One of the things that I love about the book of James is it says to count
it all joy, brethren, when God chooses to test you. Everything in life, to
me, is a test. The key to it is relationships. That is the bottom line.
I remember when we were building our new Worship Center. We were sitting
in a room one day, and somebody said, "You know what? I just found out
that this church is not going to have windows!" Somebody said, "What? A
church with no windows!" Now listen, when we walked in the trap was
already set. It was waiting to be triggered and the only way it was going
to be triggered was if somebody in there was unwilling to die to self at
the expense of loving his brother. That is the only way that trap was not
going to go off. It was already set. Well, somebody got upset and said, "I
have never seen a church in my life without windows." Before you knew it
we had some of the best men in the church sitting in a room fussing over
the fact that we didn’t have windows in the church. Some of us didn’t want
them and some of us did want them.
We left that meeting and I was thinking, "What in the world have we been
through today?" I got home and started praying about that thing. I was
praying, "God, just shut their minds down and give us no windows." That is
not the way to do it. As I was praying it was like God was saying, "Son,
son, son. It is just a test. It is just a test. Take all the books off the
table and bring out a clean sheet of paper. Let’s just see if you are
walking in the light. Let’s have a little irritation here. Let’s see who
is going to pull the trigger. Die to it." I remember praying. I said,
"God, if you want to make it a glass house, help yourself. Just so our
relationships can be back like they ought to be."
The next day different ones called me and I called them and somebody
stopped me in the parking lot and said, "Man, what are we doing?" It is
just a test.
Let me ask you a question. What are you going through
