Sermon Manuscript Walking in the Light: Expository Studies in First John “Knowing the Lord” (1 John 2:3-6) • June 24, 2001 • Dr. Doug McIntosh, Senior Pastor Introduction: The Cold War, the Spiritual War, and Biblical Strategy Today we take up the fourth in a series of studies on the little letter called First John. I said in my opening study of this book that John was a mender, a healer of prob- lems in the early church. By the time he wrote 1 John, insidious doctrines had inserted themselves into the lives of God’s people and were causing trouble. John wrote to coun- teract these. One of the things he wrote to do was to counteract false claims, and the last two weeks we saw some of those. He also wrote to confirm legitimate claims to spiritual ma- turity, and that is the topic of our study for this morning. The message is needed, because Christians are all too ready to abandon legitimate claims to spiritual realities that are ours. And when we do, we make life hard on ourselves. We saw an illustration of the principle in the political realm during the days of the Cold War. Americans insisted that democracy was a better form of human government, and that communism would in the end prove to be a disaster. That claim was a perfectly valid one, and there was nothing wrong with making it. But then after making such a claim, the western democracies went out and pro- ceeded to act as though democracy was doomed unless we did unprincipled things to prop it up. So we spent countless billions on intelligence and arms for other countries, and assassinated rulers and presidents, just as though we were sure that those countries could never see what we had seen. We would have saved ourselves lots of worry and PAGE 1money if we had simply had the courage to live out our convictions. We can make the same mistake in the spiritual realm. We can profess the suffi- ciency of Jesus Christ to make us right with God, and then become compulsively busy while showing people that we are not really sure that Jesus Christ is sufficient to justify us before the Father. Our passage for today is about spiritual maturity, and the legitimate claims to it that Christians can make. Our text is 1 John 2:3-6. Scripture: 1 John 2:3-6 3 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. 6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. What John is After: Three Tests of a Mature Spirituality This text is about assessing ourselves, and that is something that we need to do regularly and realistically. This week I ran across Tom Brokaw’s account of a little self- assessment that he had been doing. He was writing about the days shortly after he had been made co-host of the Today Show. That, of course, was the Big Time for a TV per- sonality, and it came at the end of a long run of hard work for him. He had started out doing the news in Omaha, then at stations in Los Angeles and Washington. He was feel- ing pretty good about himself and his accomplishments, and after the Today Show was over one morning he went over to Bloomingdale’s to do a little shopping. While he was there he noticed a man who kept staring at him. This fellow finally came over to talk to Brokaw, and Tom was sure he was about to reap the benefits of being a New York TV celebrity. The man came up to him and said, “Tom Brokaw, right?” “Right.” “You used to do the morning news on KMTV in Omaha, right?” “That’s right.” “I knew it the minute I spotted you,” he said. Then he stopped and a quizzical look came over him, and he asked, “Whatever happened to you?” We need to encounter a little realism from time to time to keep us from getting too impressed with ourselves. That is what this little paragraph does. Now I said at the beginning of the series that First John is arguably the most diffi- cult book in the New Testament. You begin to see some of its difficulties in a little pas- sage like this. John is giving here three tests of a mature spirituality. There are three ways that we can know whether we, or anyone else, is exhibiting a mature faith in Christ. The first has to do with... Knowing Christ Notice in verse three the way John puts this: “By this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” The suggestion here is that knowing Him is what we were made to do. This is a significant claim, so John tells us how that we can be sure we know Christ. The ways we know people—and God PAGE 2Unfortunately, that is where the language becomes ambiguous, and where people begin to be easily confused. The way we use this word in our language is virtually identi- cal to the way that the equivalent word is used in New Testament Greek. “Knowing” someone can include a range of meanings. If someone says to me, “Do you know John Doe?” I might say “Yes,” because I met him once at a friend’s house. That’s a perfectly good use of the word know. Another use of the word know comes when a woman makes a statement like, “Our car broke down last week and it’s going to cost twice as much as they said it would — and I know my husband; he’s going to be upset.” That is also a standard use of the term. The word know can mean anything from “I met him once” to “We’re very close friends.” You might say that its range of meaning includes both superficial knowledge and intimate knowledge. As students of Scripture, we are obliged to determine which of these extremes John has in mind here. Obviously, it’s going to make a great deal of difference which of these we pick. To know Christ superficially— basically to have been introduced to Him—is a long way from knowing Him intimately. Not only that, the requirement that John says goes with the kind of knowing he has in mind is important. In this case, it is “keeping His commandments.” So, if we con- clude that John has superficial knowledge of Christ in mind, we would be saying, “The one who fails to keep Christ’s commandments does not even have a superficial knowl- edge of Him.” In other words, they’ve never even been introduced. In still other words, the one who fails to keep Christ’s commandments is not even a Christian. And many people interpret this verse just that way. On the other hand, the word permits equally well the idea that “The one who keeps His commandments knows Him very well indeed.” So how do we go about deciding between these two meanings? One huge step in that direction is to begin the process of... Appreciating biblical theology Now you may be thinking, “Well, I appreciate biblical theology a lot, but I don’t see how that helps me decide what John has in mind here.” But biblical theology is a technical term. It doesn’t just mean “the theology that the Bible contains.” It has a specialized meaning, and that is, “the theological slant that is peculiar to each writer of Scripture.” Biblical theology is an outgrowth of the classical way of defining the inspiration of the Scriptures: “God superintended the human authors of Scripture so that, using their own individual personalities, they composed and recorded His message to man.” God didn’t dictate, He superintended. That means that John used language that was normal and comfortable for him, and Paul did the same. We appreciate biblical theology when we allow John’s writings to become the reservoir from which we understand John’s distinctive slant on things. So we answer this question about the meaning of “knowing Him” by asking, “Is there anywhere in John’s writing that the sub- ject of ‘knowing Christ’ is dealt with? The seed-plot for “knowing Him” And the answer is “Yes, indeed.” There is a seed-plot in John’s Gospel where we find the very concept addressed. It’s found in the fourteenth chapter of John, beginning in verse six: PAGE 36 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father ex- cept through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” Jesus is talking to one of His closest associates here. There is no way that the “knowing” of this text can refer to superficial knowledge in verse nine. Philip is long past that. Philip was one of the original disciples of Jesus. He knew the Lord well past the su- perficial stage; but he did not know Him as deeply as he needed to. That is why Jesus re- bukes him here. He needed to know Jesus better and more closely. That is why I am calling this expression... The test of a mature spirituality This test is a very simple one. The one who knows Jesus intimately keeps His commandments. He knows how valuable a mature knowledge of Christ is. He isn’t about to do anything to offend Him and lose the pleasure of His fellowship. All of us leads us to the next expression... Being in Him You see this in verse five: “Whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is per- fected in him. By this we know that we are in Him” (1 John 2:5). The end of the verse is referring back to its beginning. We know that we are “in Him” when we keep His word and have a mature experience of God’s love being perfected in us. That means we know that we are loved and we are consistent in our love of others as well. You may be saying, “Now I know what that means. There are many references to being “in Christ” all through the New Testament. Being “in Christ” means being a part of the body of Christ, the church. It’s the equivalent of being a Christian.” That’s a perfectly understandable conclusion to draw. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fully take into account the particular point of view of the writer of First John. Being “in Christ” isn’t the same as being “in Him.” “In Christ” is an expression that Paul alone uses in the New Testament. Again, an appreciation for John’s unique slant on things leads us to ask, “Is there anywhere in John’s writings where “being in Him” is discussed at length? We need to know if there is a theological seed-plot for this expression. The seed-plot for “in Him” And again, there is one. It is found in John 15:1-2, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He lifts up; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” The thought here is of the master/disciple relationship. Jesus is the Teacher upon whom all Disciples depend. We can only produce fruit if we maintain our disciple’s relationship with Him. And we only maintain our disciple’s relationship with Him if we keep His word. That leads us to a consideration of... The test of a mature spirituality According to this verse, the test of a mature spirituality is how well we keep His word. When we do, we show that God’s love toward us has achieved its purpose. It has been perfected in us. PAGE 4It’s worth setting side by side the expressions “in Christ” and “in Him” as they are used by Paul and John respectively. They sound very much alike, but the two authors are really talking about entirely different things: Expression Author Emphasis In Christ Paul In the church, the body of Christ Permanence Permanent Perspective Positional; heavenly Responsibility God (the H.S.) In Him John In a discipling relationship with Jesus Can be interrupted Experiential; earthly The disciple It helps to remember that Paul’s perspective was always heavenly. He was called by Christ from heaven to be an apostle. John’s is earthly. He was called as a fisherman. He has an intensely practical perspective, and He has hold us here how we can lay claim to a mature spirituality — by obedience to Christ’s word. That brings us to the third expression, which is... Abiding in Him Verse six, of course, talks about this. John writes, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” Abiding in Him is what this verse is about. John says that a person who claims to abide in Christ must be Christlike. To abide with someone is to stay in the same house with them—to have the kind of relationship that family members have. If we respect biblical theology, we will again ask whether there is a place where John develops this idea of abiding in Christ that might help us to understand what he’s getting at. The seed-plot for “abiding in Him” Not too surprisingly, there is. In fact, it’s just the continuation of that same pas- sage in John 15. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. Abiding in Christ is staying close to Him as a disciple. It is staying so close that we are in constant contact. Claiming to abide in Christ is a significant claim. Not just any believer can make a claim like that. Notice how the Lord told the disciples in the Upper Room, “You are already clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.” They were already in possession of forgiveness of sins and eternal life. They were already clean. They didn’t need cleansing. They needed to learn to abide. They needed to learn a mo- ment-by-moment dependence on the Lord, and that is what John is talking about in 1 John 2:6. The test of a mature spirituality The test of a mature Christian is Christlikeness. Being clean is not a mark of ma- turity. A person can be in fellowship with Christ from the moment he is converted. He may be green, he may know next to nothing; but he can be in fellowship. But he cannot PAGE 5be one who abides in Christ as a new believer. Jesus didn’t even discuss abiding with the disciples until the night of His arrest. The disciples were not new believers. They were able to do more because they had been with Jesus more. So, at that strategic moment in their history, Jesus told them that they needed to be sure and abide in Him if they wanted to continue their discipleship even after He was ascended to the Father. People who are mature don’t need to make decisions about moral issues because they have settled their moral decisions in advance. Immature people haven’t worked this through. They are still struggling to decide who is in charge of their moral decision- making. This week I read the account of a conversation between Bill Cosby and a young boy named Peter. Bill asked Peter, “Do you try to do the things Jesus told you to do?” Knowing he had never met Jesus or heard him speak, Peter bluntly replied, “He didn’t tell me to do nothin’.” Cosby tried to spur the boy’s memory by saying, “I mean things like turning the other cheek.” Peter flatly asked, “What’s that mean?” Cosby explained, “If somebody hits you, you don’t hit him back.” Peter looked confused while asking, “Jesus said be a wimp?” “No, not a wimp, a lover of peace,” affirmed Mr. Cosby. Peter’s reflection on all of this led him to say, “It don’t sound too smart. Why don’t the guy who hits me love peace first?” Cosby replied, “Well, that’s the whole point of Jesus’ message: You have to be bigger than the other person.” This caused Peter to seriously mull over what he had just heard. After a few mo- ments he answered back, “If you’re bigger, you should definitely hit him back.” 1 That kind of reasoning is characteristic of beginners to spiritual living. They aren’t even familiar with Jesus’ commandments, and it’s unlikely that they are going to obey what they don’t even know. A few minutes before Jesus talked to the disciples about abiding, he had said something else that bore on the discussion: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21). These are the two requirements of an ongoing disciple relationship. The first, if you will notice, is “having His command- ments.” In other words, a disciple understands what the Lord expects of him. This ex- pression means, basically, that we know the content of the New Testament. Nobody comes into the faith with that equipment. None of us have His commandments as new converts. And we can’t keep them until we have them. Now if you have been listening thoughtfully, you might be asking yourself, “What is the difference between these three expressions? What is the difference between know- ing Christ, and being in Him, and abiding in Him? As far as I can tell, there isn’t any. They are three ways of describing the same thing, a mature and spiritual relationship between a disciple and the Lord. And we would be remiss if we didn’t do what John is suggesting here and apply this series of tests to ourselves. How well do these descriptions of a mature spirituality describe us? There is something that is implicit in this entire discussion, of course, and that is the level of responsibility that this passage and its related texts place on the shoulders of PAGE 6the individual disciple. You have in the New Testament a full-orbed discussion of Chris- tian discipleship that approximates human maturing. When we come into the world, eve- rything is done for us. At birth, we are weak and dependent creatures and we would die in the next few days if someone else didn’t take care of us. We can tell when we are be- coming mature people when we begin to take responsibility for ourselves. But the real test of our maturity comes when we begin to assume responsibility for the people around us. That is why John says in this text that we know we are maturing when we can see the love of God being perfected in us. God’s love for you and me is only perfected when we have taken it and passed it on to somebody else. Keeping His commandments involves investing yourself in others, just as He did. 1 Saturday Evening Post, March/April 1999, 40. C OPYRIGHT © 2001 P. D OUGLAS M C I NTOSH . T HIS DATA FILE / MANUSCRIPT IS THE SOLE PROPERTY OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER AND MAY BE COPIED ONLY IN ITS ENTIRETY FOR CIRCULATION FREELY WITHOUT CHARGE . A LL COPIES OF THIS DATA FILE / MANUSCRIPT MUST CONTAIN THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICE . T HIS DATA FILE / MANUSCRIPT MAY NOT BE COPIED IN PART ( EXCEPT FOR SMALL QUOTATIONS USED WITH CITATION OF SOURCE ), EDITED , REVISED , COPIED FOR RESALE , OR INCORPORATED IN ANY COMMERCIAL PUBLICATIONS , RECORDINGS , BROADCASTS , PERFORMANCES , DISPLAYS , OR OTHER PRODUCTS OFFERED FOR SALE WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER . R EQUESTS FOR PERMISSION SHOULD BE MADE IN WRITING AND ADDRESSED TO D R . D OUG M C I NTOSH , S ENIOR P ASTOR , C ORNERSTONE B IBLE C HURCH , 869 C OLE D RIVE , L ILBURN , GA 30047. PAGE 7