1st,2nd,3rd John (Sun) – 2

Introduction

Chapter 1 of 1 John. We’ve covered all the true and false questions of your material. If you didn’t get those, the answers are true, false, true, false, true. Did you get that? Five trues, two falses. The falses are number two and number five. I’m not sure that we spent a lot of time with the answer to the last question of chapter one, so we’re going to cover that again because we need to get the framework of what’s going on as this moves into chapter two, and it’s been two weeks. You’ve slept 14 times since then. So chapter 1 begins with the certainties of the gospel, the certainties of the good news related to Jesus. What word is going to appear over and over again?

Manifest. Well, it is sort of associated with that. I’m actually looking for a different word. He uses the word manifest, clearly evidenced. Truth is going to be, but another word.

These are the things that we know. We’ve seen, we’ve heard, we’re witnesses to these things. They have been manifested to us, clearly seen. We know these things. And this is said in contrast to those who claim to be in the know, but who are leading them away from things that are right. And so now he’s going to tell them about the things that we know and how that should relate to our conduct. And there’s a in the very beginning, there’s a chart about Gnosticism. It’s a very short course in the Gnostic philosophy. It seems that the Corinthians had come under influence of that to some degree in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. But if you’ll want to look back at that chart, a lot of what happens at the end of chapter 1 has to do with what these elitists, and I think that’s the best thing to call them.

They are spiritual elitists. First of all, they know more than you, and they’re going to tell you how it is, and they’re not going to listen to anything to the contrary. Therefore, who are their enemies? Who are their enemies?

Like John. They are rejecting John’s influence and apostleship. And so that’s why this is so important that he established that he’s an eyewitness, and these are the things that he is an apostle. You know, if you don’t agree with us, then you’re not walking among us. In 1 John chapter 4, that’s how we know the spirit of truth or the spirit of error, the one who listens to us, he says. And Paul is fighting the same battle, it seems, in Corinth, with those who think Paul is a counterfeit, he’s disingenuous, and so they’re rejecting his authority. Some people really have authority issues and struggles with those who wield authority. They’re not liked merely because they are in the position of authority. And the apostles, of all people, you would think, wouldn’t have to deal with that.

It’s not like they were socially elite. Many of them were uneducated and untrained men. The Pharisees recognized them as that in Acts 4 and verse 13. They were just godly, sincere men who were given a mission to be representatives of the Lord as apostles. And yet they were treated as threats and rivals and hated. And I really think that’s why there’s such an emphasis on hate in 1 John. It’s not just that these believers were turning on each other or excluding one another or looking down on one another. They were looking down upon and excluding apostles, which evidence the hate in their heart. And you cannot love God while you hate John, while you hate Paul, his representatives. And that takes on an even more significant light to me, as they were rejecting apostles for their gnosis, for their knowledge.

It seems that because of some things, maybe that Paul had even said, that we have been raised up to sit with Christ in heavenly places. You know, there’s an exalted nature to coming into Christ. You know, we’ve been cleansed from sin. We are now, we now have access at the throne of God. You know, we don’t have to have the high priest system of the Old Testament because Jesus is our high priest, and just as he has been elevated in the heavens, see, there’s this heavenly concept in relation to Christians, and so some were led to believe that made them in this elite upper tier status, and they could look down on people, and plus there’s this whole concept that what you do in the flesh did not affect.

See, you’re cleansed. The separateness of flesh and spirit, that whatever you did in the flesh didn’t affect your spirit. So you could not sin. The question is, did they hold this view? And this is what I was reading this morning, did they hold this view prior to their conversion? Or is this the result of their conversion? That they see themselves as completely above sin. Because that’s where we’re going to start reading here in 1 John 1 and verse 5. And this is the message, we have heard from him, the one that was manifest, that they that they saw and walked among.

1. God Is Light

And notice, so this has got to underscore everything that follows. God is light, he is the source of all that is pure and good and holy and right. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. He does not justify the immoral.

Everything that is dark is opposed to his character. And so he says, and you’ll notice this phrase, and I’ve got it underlined all the way through the end of chapter 1, verse 6. If we say, verse 7, if we walk, verse 8, if we say, verse 9, if we confess, verse 10, if we say. So he goes back and forth. If we say, if we walk. If we say, if we confess, if we say. Okay, so there are apparently people saying these things. If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, and again, that’s what these elitists would say that whatever we do in the flesh is irrelevant. If we want to commit immorality, it doesn’t affect our spirits. But we know committing immoral acts is walking in darkness.

That’s been clearly defined by all the New Testament writers and preachers. So if we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, he calls it what it is. It’s a lie. We lie and we’re not practicing the truth. That’s how serious this is. But said in contrast to that, if we walk in the light, as he is in the light. Speaking of Christ, of course, the one who was introduced, the word of life in verse 1, we have fellowship with one another. Well, actually, it might refer also to God the Father, as he’s already introduced that God is light. All three persons of the Godhead would be included. Because he specifies Jesus at the end of verse 7. 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.

2. If We Say That We Have No Sin

Now we’re going to talk more about that verse in a minute. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Now that’s very similar to what he said in verse 6, right? Walking in darkness, you’re lying and you don’t practice the truth. If you say you have no sin, you’re self-deceived, and the truth is not in us. Now, I think some false conclusions are drawn about this verse. That some have said that there’s sin on our account all the time. And we’re sinning in ways that we don’t know about all the time. And to deny that would be a violation of this verse, we’re deceiving ourselves, the truth is not in us. I don’t believe that’s what this verse is saying.

I don’t think it’s saying that we’re sinning all the time, and thus we need the grace and mercy and forgiveness of God. It said, in contrast to those who say they are living completely above sin, can’t be tainted by sin, that they have not sinned in their spirits, no matter what they’ve done in their flesh, that from the time, at least from the time that they obeyed the gospel, they believe that sin can no longer touch them. And the fact is it has and it will. And it’s touching them in the fact that they’re hating John. And hating these people really that they’re influencing. They’re committing sin. But they are saying we’re above sin. We’ve been risen to walk with Christ. I mean, we’re above sin.

Absolutely not. Because then he says, well, he’s already implied in verse 7 what? If we’re walking in the light and sin comes into our walk somehow, what can we have? We can have the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse us. He’s going to explain that further in verse 9 when he says, if we do what? Confess our sins. He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us. Now, who’s the us? Those that are walking in the light, those that are in Christ, we might still need cleansing. He is able to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, just like verse 7 said. And so then he says again in verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Again, I think it could be stated from the standpoint of just Gnosticism generally, that we are not infected by sin because whatever we do in the flesh does not affect our spirits. Or even if they think about it from the standpoint of the time that they became a Christian, but they have that they’re living completely above sin. Sin is no longer a problem to them. And John says, yes, it will be.

Among us. Where somebody advocates the essence of Gnosticism and says that once you get into Christ, sin is not a possibility for you anymore. Probably because we’ve been studying 1 John for two millennia.

People who say, I know that’s what the Bible says, but I don’t think that vibes me today. That’s not the writing. I love God, he left me. I’m just saying. Well, they justify sin in that sense. And really, that’s what all false doctrine ultimately does. It finds a palatable way to justify sin. Palatable in that it convinces some people. A palatable way to justify wrongdoing. Almost all error does that. But I don’t see quite the Gnostic error that says the spirit and the flesh are separate, and whatever you do in the flesh has no relevance to the spirit.

Yeah, that’s what I was, that’s where I thought you were going, yeah. But that applies. Once I’m there, it really doesn’t matter well about you down here. Yeah, the only difference is that the one who teaches that still believes it’s sin. Still believes it’s sin. Yeah. But there’s no cause. Right. No consequences to the sin. That’s sort of a sort of a variant of the Gnostic doctrine, really, is what it is. Because they don’t deny that it’s a sin. I’m just not affected by it. In this case, they’re denying it’s a sin altogether. Now, he doesn’t want his audience to misunderstand. And that’s why I think you ought to keep reading and not really see the chapter division here. Because he says, My little children, and now he’s talking to those who have come under the influence of these teachers that he’s writing to try to rescue, and he cares about them.

3. I Write These Things That You May Not Sin

I’m writing these things to you that you may not sin. Now, he’s just argued that we have sinned. We are likely going to sin. We sinned since we’ve become Christians, but you don’t have to sin. And that’s what the debate came out of this when I think we were totally, brethren, we’re, I say we, brethren, we’re totally ripping it out of the context and had this debate about whether Jesus had to sin, whether we have to sin. To me, that’s all just a foolish discussion. First of all, Jesus could have sinned, or he could not be the example to us that the book of Hebrews talks about. He chose not to sin. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. Yes, he could have sinned, not to be the ultimate sacrifice, but do we have to sin?

No, we don’t have to, but we all do. Jesus didn’t. He was one exception to the rule. But we didn’t resist sin. That’s right.

Yes. And we can experience victory over sin. And the gospel, and this is the point that he’s making here, the gospel is designed to assist us in victory over sin. It is designed to make us more victorious than we were in the past. As we commit ourselves to his righteousness and his truth. That’s why he says, My little children, I write these things that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous. Okay, so he’s, it’s that contingency legislation. Okay, I’m writing these things to you that you will avoid the practice of sinning. And he’s going to have more to say about that in chapter 3. But if any man does sin, it’s not all hopeless and lost.

And maybe that’s one of the reasons why this doctrine was so appealing. If we don’t have to sweat the problem of sin anymore, then we feel better in relation to our assurance of salvation, which I’m preaching on shortly. So we don’t have to deal with the problem of sin. We’re living above it now. And so don’t sweat it. If you happen to be tempted and drawn away into something, it’s okay. Your spirit’s not affected. And that’s a very comforting thought. The problem is it’s not true. And we’re going to have sins that need to be cleansed by the blood of Christ, and we need to confess those sins. And that whole discussion I was talking about revolved around whether you could know every sin that you committed.

4. What It Is to Walk in the Light

And so, how can you confess what you do not know? Like David talks about the secret and presumptuous sin. Keep your servant back from presumptuous sin in Psalm 139, 23 and 24. And that really gets me to this discussion of the last question, to find what it means to walk in the light. Because I tell you what we need to be concerned about. Are we walking in the light? Whatever that phrase means, if we’re doing it, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from our sins. So this is important. What is it? I’ve asked you tell me. What is it to walk in the light? Tim? You have three answers. Okay. I’ve got more than three. Go ahead. Well, it’s in the light of Jesus, the Father is.

That’s right. It’s based on who he is.

Fellowship with him. And then practically, you know, it’s a diligent focus. I wrote largely successful living according to God. I like that. Largely successful. Living according to God’s will. Because he’s already acknowledged that there will be some lack of success. You know, there’s something about the fact that by nature we were children of wrath, dead in our trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2 and verse 1. That when we become Christians and we’ve determined to walk a new course, that degradation of our past does not want to die. As we want, we want it to die. It doesn’t want to go away. The devil is still there tempting us, as we saw in our James study. We’re drawn away by our own lusts and enticed. I think the whole New Testament is talking about this.

Paul in Romans 6, consider yourselves dead to sin. Paul in Colossians 3, consider yourselves dead to immorality and greed and all of those things in Colossians 3. On account of these, the wrath of God will come. He realizes, and Peter warns about being entangled again by what a man is overcome by this. He’s enslaved. 2 Peter 2, 19 and following. The whole New Testament talks about this resurgence of the worldly heart and the fight against it. We’ve got to keep fighting, being renewed daily in the spirit of our minds. It’s a constant battle. And I know we get weary in that. And that’s where this Gnostic philosophy seems so appealing. You know, it’s a solution to that constant warfare. But the Bible talks about warfare. And Paul tells Timothy to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

And that whole image of put on the full armor of God. When do you do that? Just when you become a Christian. Oh, it’s every day. Fight against the wiles of the devil. These flaming missiles, he’s shooting at you all the time. He’s ISIS, but worse. Okay, we’re so concerned about the Isis threat. We need to be more concerned about our adversary. Who’s shooting at us all the time? He’s on our soil. So it’s concerned about Isis being on our soil. He’s on our soil all the time. And how are we going to defeat him? We’ve got to take up what? The shield of faith, the full armor of God, but particularly the shield of faith. And that’s where my lesson’s going this morning. What’s going to beat him is our trust and confidence in God.

Our trust and confidence in his word. And then there’s going with that, there’s the breastplate of righteousness. I’ve got to pursue doing what’s right. And that’s John is just saying this in a different package. It’s the same thing that Paul is saying. And yes, sometimes those fiery darts hit their mark and we fall short. But we have to pick ourselves up, and thankfully that there has been provision made for that. All is not lost and hopeless. Even though, yes, we are sometimes tainted by sin. And that should not erode our confidence, because it’s in the same book in verse 13 of chapter 5. And we’ll come to this in our lesson. These things I’ve written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, which is a great phrase.

We’ll get to that when we study it. In order that you may know that you have eternal life. So he’s not eroding their confidence in salvation by saying these things. And I was going to say, like you said, you know, continuing that drawing in chapter 2, me that walking in the light, summed up in verse 6. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. So when you ask yourself, would Jesus justify this behavior that I’m thinking of? Would Jesus say, it’s not that bad. This is really okay. That’s not walking in the light. And you have to make a decision that if you make a mistake like he begins again in chapter 2, we have an advocate. But we don’t stay out of the light.

When we see our problem.

Which direction are we walking? According to the light, righteousness, truth. All those terms are interchangeable. We are setting our hearts on what is right, what is true. What if we find ourselves not wanting to do something that’s right or true? We confess if we if we’ve fallen in it, we confess our sins, and we keep walking the course. We start pursuing it. No matter how hard it may appear to us. And if it appears like really hard and impossible, what should you do? No that it’s not. But what else?

Prayer. Prayer. He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 18. We have heavenly assistance. We can do this. God has not asked us to do anything that we are incapable of doing if we want to do it. If we think properly about our lives and about God, and sometimes our view of God gets distorted, this part of the problem, too. But if we want to do what is right, we can do it with God’s help.

Yeah. Well, the word is to richly dwell in us. You start talking about all those passages in the New Testament that tell us how to be victorious.

We cannot have fellowship while we habitually live in darkness. While our walk is dominated by darkness. So is your walk being dominated by darkness, or is it being dominated by light? And that contrast is going to be made further in chapter 3. Well, then the rub comes is that when what defines darkness? What parameters do you use to define whether you’re walking the light or walking in darkness? Because a lot of times we go to the wrong standards to determine that. We’re like, well, I’m better than Job is if we work or Bob or whoever else. So if you use this as a standard that you’re better than, instead of going to God’s word as a standard of what the life looks like, then you’re in trouble.

Yeah, this is not a better than game. And that’s what we’ve got to remember that I look at it as kind of like almost like you know, when the shadows are starting to come in, you know, and we’re walking at the same speed as that shadow is trying to overtake us. And if we stop, then we’re going to be enveloped in that darkness if we stop working and walking. We can choose to maybe turn towards the dark for a little bit, like, oh man, I don’t need to be here. I need to walk back towards the light, try to stay there. But it’s what, like you said, I totally agree with you. General overall walk. Are you are you describing to do the right things, or are you messing up more than not?

And then what standard do you use to judge word? Let’s say Sean is the most righteous one in our group. Let’s just for you know argumentation. Since he just made the comment. Sean’s most righteous of our group. So he looks at everybody else and says, I’m doing better than everybody else. My thinking is more holy and pure. Of course, now he’s got a self-righteous issue. But I mean, I mean, okay, this we’re this is just argumentation. Sean is the most righteous person in our group. That’s objective. Let’s say we can determine that. What does he need to be looking at? What is he not?

Well, I know. I’ve already granted that, but I’m just saying, I’m saying, who is the ultimate example? Jesus. I mean, have I attained to the perfect example of Jesus yet? Has there been sin in my past? Even since I became a Christian, Jesus had no sin. I am still completely dependent upon him. It doesn’t matter if you’re more knowledgeable, more spiritually attuned, more prayerful than everybody else. Because better than is not the standard. The standard is Jesus. And so we got to get over this achievement thing that we think. As again, the sermon will address, because we think if I achieve a certain status, you know, I attend all the services. You know, start thinking we’re pretty special.

We’re not there yet. And we’re not, we’re not exactly like Jesus was. And that’s the goal. That’s what we ought to be aiming for. Walking in the light. Let me let me give you a couple things here, and then we’ll move on. Again, the Gnostics said the body is just an envelope of the soul. And that sin does not contaminate the soul. It’s like whatever you do in the flesh, it can’t get inside your spirit. But Jesus has already debunked that. Where does sin originate? In the heart. Mark chapter 7. It proceeds from the soul or the spirit of man. And here’s the question really that John is raising. It’s a hard one. Can you be righteous without doing righteousness? No. You cannot. So walking in the light, here’s what I put down.

Tim’s answers were very good. Habitual pursuit of God’s desires. It doesn’t mean perfect, it doesn’t mean unfailing, but his thinking and motives become mine. I’m pursuing approved conduct, what the New Testament reveals. Test everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good. First lessalonians 5 and verse 21. Longing to be with him. And we’ll talk more about this as we go along. But one thing he’s saying for sure, while we do sin, do not take it lightly. We must confess our sins. And we need Jesus to cleanse our sins. And how does he serve in that capacity?

5. Jesus Our Advocate and Propitiation

That you may not sin. And as Gabe so correctly pointed out, question two has an error. It should say, one and two, not two and three. This is what you do when you start typing these things in from memory and your memory fails you. I have this actually corrected in my old notes that I use, but I didn’t correct it when I should have when I redid the material and put it in its present format. So it’s actually verses one and two, but I was going to see how if you could figure it out anyway. What two terms are applied to Jesus?

Two wonderful words. Very uncommon in Scripture. Propitiation a couple times. Advocate only here in 1 John. What’s the idea of being an advocate? Somebody done so far off about that. Yeah.

He’s called alongside to plead our case. Like a character witness in a trial. And yet perhaps more of an official capacity because he’s called an advocate. Jesus is our advocate. How is he qualified to be our advocate? And how does how does that encourage us? He lives in the flesh. He knows what we’re going through. And that’s what the Hebrew writer is saying. He knows what we’re going through. He understands this struggle. When I look at his temptations of Matthew chapter 4, while he was victorious on every count, he was hungry.

Yeah, he’s talking to the one who is in ultimate control on our behalf. Who didn’t experience life in the flesh? Jesus did experience. But he’s not just our advocate and intercessor, other term used in Romans 8 and in Hebrews 7. He’s also propitiation. We use that term every day, right? No. What is it?

Yeah. The fact that he is our atoning sacrifice. He appeased the wrath and justice of God. And like I’ve been telling you recently in lessons, it’s astounding what God had to endure, all that God had to arrange to provide propitiation for us. Because we couldn’t do it. You think about the long biblical story. Daniel wants me to do some sermons on this. I might get around to this soon. Of the scheme of redemption in the Old Testament. But God does all of this arranging and planning from the foundation of the world to provide the sin substitute for us. He leaves ivory palaces as we seen, comes into the world of woe. He shines in the darkness, the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1. See, we see some overtones there with John 1.

And paid the price for our sins. He bore the curse of our sins upon the cross. That ought to be motivating. That ought to be motivating in our attempts to overcome temptation, to overcome sin. Because he paid so much for us to even have the hope of forgiveness and reconciliation and access at the throne of God.

I think sometimes we can use some of a little bit of that attitude for ourselves at times that is being totally condemnation that we know we have to condemn sin. But our religion helps.

Right. Good points. But he’s the propitiation not for our sins only, but how can he be the propitiation for the whole world? Does that mean everybody’s saved? Everybody has to be. That’s the point is that he has provided the solution for every person, but they have to embrace it. We urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain, 2 Corinthians 6, 1 and 2, but working together with him, you’ve got to be willing to do that. You’ve got to embrace the provisions. You’ve got to walk in the light to receive this magnificent gift from God.

What if they believe the doctrine of Calvinism?

Oh, yeah. This answer is limited atonement. It’s clear, and there are other passages. God would have all men to be saved. I mean, does he or doesn’t he want all men to be saved? He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Oh, go ahead. I’m interested to say also that the idea of the whole world there is very comforting. You’re dealing with, well, I don’t want to have to think about whether or not I’m so sinful, and then he has to go and auto-correct as he said and say, look, I know you sinned and you’re still okay with God. Well, will God really forgive my sins? What I did is really bad. I sin a lot. And he says not just our sins, the whole world’s sins.

There is not enough sin in the world that Jesus sacrifice can’t come up. Very good point. It’s made for every sinner, regardless of the sin of their past, if they will embrace the provision and then turn and walk his direction. Now we I want to talk just a little bit about identifying sin. Because this gets back to what we sometimes hear. Well, we’re we’re full of sin. We’re committing sin all the time. We better not be. If we’re committing sin all the time, we’re not walking in the light. We’re walking in what? Darkness. So we need to be able to identify what sin is. Right? And I think we do a pretty good job of that in terms of immoral, certain immoral vices. And we talk about those a lot.

You forfeit sobriety, you’ve committed sin. You commit sexual immorality, it’s immorality. You committed sin. That’s pretty clear. The harder part for us becomes sin in our thoughts. That’s what’s harder to identify. The words that we speak about others, okay, if they’re profane words, that’s pretty easy. But what about when we talk about others? When is it gossip? So I say, well, we shouldn’t talk about others. Really? Really. We talk about others all the time. That’s the stuff of conversation. We talk about people. We talk about athletes and actors and politicians. Sometimes we talk about the weather. We’re talking about the behavior of people all the time. You know, do you see he did that? Or we were out here talking about Johnny Manzil and Jameis Winston a little bit ago, and about how Johnny next to Jameis looks so much better.

But, you know, we talk about the behavior of people all the time. But what constitutes gossip?

When it has no productive purpose, when its only goal is to tear down, when its only goal is to promote yourself, when it’s a selfish thing, when it’s just to tell something juicy about someone else that puts them in a bad light. I mean, but conversations about people are the stuff of life. That’s like we talk about the president all the time. Because he’s he’s our elected leader. He’s the leader of the free world. But we have to be careful what we say about the leader. And there are passages that talk about that. And why we say it. Our motives are what determine sinfulness in this regard. And so we’ve constantly got to be examining how we’re thinking, why we’re saying what we’re saying. And so we need to be able to identify sinfulness in ourselves.

He just openly condemned diocrophy and what it’s doing and how he’s treating people. And he’s going to address that when he gets there. And he makes no he was not doing right. It was public. And John called him out to him. And his sin was loving to have the preeminence. He loved to wield authority and power, and that was his sin. And he calls it out very specifically, as we’ll get to that in 3 John. Alright, so we’re going to talk more about that as we go along. That’s just the introduction on identifying sin and the fact that we need to be walking in the light. Now, this is the opening salvo of 1 John. We’re done with that. Okay, so let’s not be saying that sin is no longer an issue for us.

6. The Moral Test: We Walk As He Walked

Because it still is from time to time, though we ought to know more victories than we knew before we became Christians. So how can we know for sure if we’re walking in the light? That’s what chapter 2 deals with. And there are three things. When somebody put me onto this, I said, yes, this is what’s going on in chapter 2. Three tests. And I want you to have this down by next Sunday, you’re going to have this down. You’ll never forget it. Alright? Number one is the moral test. Number one is the moral test, verses three through six. The moral test. Number two, the social test, verses seven through 11. That is our attitudes and treatment of others. The moral test, the social test, seven through 11, and then the last part of the chapter, really with an interlude from verses 12 through 17 as he makes appeals to various age groups in his audience.

The final section in verses 18 through 27, and this is important, the convictions test. So how do we know if we’re walking in the light as we should? There’s the moral test, there’s the social test, there is the convictions test. And the reason why that last test is also important is because what you believe matters. The things you believe about Jesus, the convictions you have. And that’s why, you know, in our discussion, and I’m not picking on them, but they’re the first ones that come to mind, Jehovah’s Witnesses. To me, any discussion that I have with the Jehovah’s Witnesses is going to center upon the deity of Christ. Because as long as they treat Jesus as a lesser God and a created being, what they believe about heaven is really irrelevant to me.

Because that conviction is wrong. To believe something wrong about the character and person of Jesus is at the basis of a right response to God. Convictions matter. They are antichrist as they reject the deity of Christ. And so until we get that issue resolved, what we believe about these other matters is really irrelevant. All religious people disagree about some things. But if you can’t agree on the name of Jesus, and that’s really what the discussion is about, the name of Jesus. And I want to preach on this soon. What does that mean in the name of Jesus? But if we don’t agree on that, we really have no basis for discussion. We don’t believe the same things about the Savior who sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Convictions matter. So morals matter, relations to others matter, convictions matter. That’s what’s going on in chapter 2. So for our last few minutes, let’s deal with the moral argument because it’s really kind of simple. How do we know that we know Jesus?

We walk as he walked. He’s our model, he’s our pattern. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Philippians 2 and verse 5. Are you thinking about things the way Jesus thinks about things? Are you thinking about people? After all, what was his attitude toward people? I want to try to save them all. I care about them, even though they’re annoying. You don’t think Jesus ever thought people were annoying? But he wanted their salvation. I think he was pretty annoyed by the Pharisees. Who thought they had it all figured out religiously, and here’s the one who gave them life and breath, and they’re rejecting it. Do you think that might have been a little annoying? I think it was. But did he die for the Pharisees?

He most definitely did. But we struggle with that. It’s easy for us, easier for us to refrain from intoxicating ourselves and to think right about other people. It’s harder for me. I mean, we tend to measure other people by ourselves, and we sort of like ourselves as the standard. And if they don’t measure up in whatever way, you know, or if we find something about their personality that’s just a little bit annoying, then they’re down here and we’re up here. That’s not the way Jesus did it. That’s not the mind that he had. And so we need to do some study to get to know how Jesus thought about things, how he thought about people. And that’s going to affect the way I treat my fellow man.

That’s going to affect the way I act in my home. That’s going to affect every relationship. We’ve got to walk as he walked. And what that means is when he commands us something, either by his own words or his apostles, we’re going to listen to that. We’re going to attempt to do that. We keep his commandments.

And if we say, well, I know Jesus, and we don’t do that, what? Just like those Gnostics, we’re liars. We’re liars, and the truth is not in us. Whoever keeps his word in him, the love of God has truly been perfected. Somebody says, I just love God so much. And they’re rejecting his instruction. In many areas. God says, not passing the love test. They don’t love me. Somebody that loves me is going to be submissive to my instruction. And in this person, the love of God has truly been perfected. And by this we know. These are the things we know. Notice how many times the word know appears in these verses. The one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked.

Conclusion

The whole point, as we conclude with this morning, the whole point of Jesus coming to earth was not merely to provide the sin sacrifice, but to show us how to live. And one of the things we need to be looking for in our studies of the Gospels and what the epistles say about Jesus is figuring out this is how Jesus walked. This is how he related to other people. This is how we need to walk and relate to other people. It ought to be foremost in our study of the New Testament. You know, we’re just going to say, like these notes are claiming that they know him.

That’s right. I mean, if it’s the same law of the doctrine that we see today. If you think you can do these things and law your faith, then maybe wrong. And that was Jesus’ response. You know, not everyone who says to me, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And they’re going to respond, I know you. We know you. You were one of us. You walked in our streets. And then when he says, depart from me, what does he accuse them of?

Or lawlessness. You’re not practicing what God says. Therefore, you’re not my friend. You don’t know me. You are my friend if you do what I command you, John 14, 15. All right. We’ll pick up from there and start with the social test on next Lord’s Day, Lord willing, verse 7.