Walking with Jesus!

“Walking with Jesus!”

Sermon Series: Walk in Faith (3 of 10)

1 John 2:3 - 14 (NIV)

Pastor Jerry Ingalls

First Baptist Church-New Castle, Indiana

January 31, 2010

We are in week 3 of our study on First John entitled, "Walk in Faith". Are you ready for a test? [pause]

What does it mean to Walk in Faith?

That is what the Apostle John has done for us; he has set up tests for us to know if we are really walking with faith in Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. He wants us to humbly and soberly look at our lives so that we can know that we know whether we have God in our lives.

Last week, we learned that if you are really walking with the Light then 1) you have to ask Jesus Christ into your life as your Lord and Savior; then 2) you must take sin seriously and confess it to Jesus Christ. Then 3) you stop doing the sin and live a new life...a life that truly reflects God's Light!

How are you doing so far on this test? [Good news-this is a take home open book test!]

Let's look at the next couple questions on the test. As you open your Bible to First John 2:3-14 (NIV) my friend Chloe is going to come up to read:

³We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. ⁴The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. ⁵But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: ⁶Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. ⁷Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. ⁸Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining. ⁹Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. ¹¹But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. ¹²I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. ¹³I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. ¹⁴I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

The Word of God. Thank you Chloe! Let us pray.

Do you claim John 17:3 as true? [pause]

In John 17:3 Jesus is praying to God, "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."

In 1 John, the Apostle John is directly writing to people from different house churches in Ephesus who who claimed they knew God, but they were struggling with major heretical views (Docetism and early Gnosticism) that were leading them astray in proper belief and proper lifestyle...not too uncommon these days either! The Apostle John was directly dealing with these early Christian heretics who said we can know God and live any way we want...they separated their heads from their hearts; their spirit from their body; their intellectual pursuit of spiritual knowledge from their morality and ethics.

In order for these early church Christians to truly know "that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" the aged Apostle John gives them a test so that they know. He is lovingly, but directly confronting their hypocrisy.

We now turn to God's Word to see if we really know that we are walking in a lifestyle of faith in Jesus Christ.

WE KNOW THAT WE ARE WALKING WITH JESUS CHRIST WHEN...WE ARE OBEDIENT TO HIS COMMANDS! [3-6]

Brothers and sisters in Christ, The Apostle John straight talks with the Bottom Line up Front: We know Jesus Christ to the extent of our moral obedience to God's Teachings, His commands, His Word (the Logos) Jesus Christ. Here is an axiom that John lays out, "Faith = Belief + Obedience".

Let's look at the first verse of our Scripture lesson, 1 John 2:3, "We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands."

This verse is translated very literally, "We know that we know" ...when I make a statement like this I am talking about a gut level knowing. This is not an intellectual or an emotional knowing--this is a full sensory, experiential and dynamic knowing in all Caps., "I KNOW that I know!" This kind of knowing is a genuine personal relationship--to know God is not an intellectual exercise, but it mandates fellowship with Him. That fellowship with the God who is Light (perfect & holy) leads to a willing desire to continuously & habitually be obedient (the Greek verb translated "we obey" is in the ongoing, continuous present tense.) to His commands (or "orders").

What are the Commands of Jesus Christ? [pause]

In the Gospel of Matthew 22:37-29, Jesus was asked what the greatest commandments of God were, "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Do you live a habitual lifestyle of love as Jesus commanded? [First to God, then to your neighbor?]

The thesis is set from verse 3: "We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands." and now we read in verse 4, "The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

This immediately brings my mind back to 1 John 1:8 from last week, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." What's the parallel?

I can only see the truth of your claim to know Christ if I see the truth of Christ in your life! If I do not, then I must assume that you are a liar and the message of God, His teachings/His commandments/His orders (and by extension the Gospel of Jesus Christ), is not in 'us'.

Tell story about driver arrested.

John is writing to churches who were all together missing the mark; this is written in a tribal culture where we are in this together--God's church is in this together so your wrong views and wrong lifestyle effect me as much as they affect you! We are in this together!

Let's look at the first half of verse 5, "But if anyone obeys his word [Yes, that is the Greek Word Logos (points to Jesus Christ and His Gospel) which is an intensification from the truth seen in verse 4, but also is what emphasized that the truth in the previous verse was pointing to the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ and is the message John is proclaiming to us], God's love is truly made complete in him."

The completion of love in us is pointing us to the perfect fellowship that God extends to us. God is the dynamic love affair who is community; who is in perfect relationship with Himself and offers to us this love that can only be completed through a personal relationship in Jesus Christ (we laid this out in lesson 1 of 1 John 1:1-4). When we come into this personal relationship with Jesus Christ through Faith alone then we come into perfect fellowship with the Triune God and He make His home in our lives by sending His Holy Spirit in our hearts. What great love God has shone us!

Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel of John 14:23, "Jesus replied, 'If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'"

We can see that we are in God's perfect fellowship by the way we habitually live out God's commandment to love him with all of our heart, soul, and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

And this completion does not mean that we are perfect in this life; perfection for me and you does not happen on this side of Heaven. We strive to be perfect as God is perfect, but when we sin (trip, stumble, fall, relapse) we humbly confess and turn away from our sin. It is a dynamic rhythm of life that draws us closer and closer to God until we are completed in Him.

This dynamic process is empowered by God's Holy Spirit living in us and our good works are not because we are good, but they are an outflow of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Our walk is an outflow of God's love for us and ours for Him...That is why John looks for the fruit of the relationship...in obedience to who God is...

To complete this test, we read 1 John 5b-6, "This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did."

This can more literally be translated, "anyone who claims to abide [an allusion to John 15] in Jesus Christ (the Word of Life) binds himself (or is duty bound) to live a habitual lifestyle of Christ-likeness. " Jesus is the vine and we are the branch. We have fruit on our branch when we abide; we are bound to the vine! The vine is the Life Giver and Life Sustainer.

If the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit lives in our lives once we accept Jesus Christ then a perfectly valid test of His presence is to watch for His actions, His morals, His ethics, His lifestyle of Love flowing through our daily lives!

We further validate this test of the Apostle John's with the words of Jesus Christ, who commanded us to live Christ-like lives. We see this in the Gospel of John 13:15, "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."

Jesus Christ is our model and we learn how to walk like Him by reading about Him in the Gospels. Study them, soak Jesus into your life! His story is the center of history and the climax of God's redemptive plan to restore all of His creation back into a perfect fellowship with Himself!

The second test is an intensification of the first test and we will turn to the next 5 verses of 1 John 2:7-11 to unpack it.

WE KNOW THAT WE ARE WALKING WITH JESUS CHRIST WHEN...WE LOVE LIKE JESUS! [7-11]

⁷Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.

The phrase, "since the beginning" is understood in context to 1 John 1:1 and the Gospel of John 1:1 where we see John clearly stating that Jesus Christ, the Word of Life, was with God in the beginning and His message (The Gospel) has been with God from the beginning. The sending of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, to die on the Cross of Calvary as our perfect atoning sacrifice for your sin and mine was in the mind of God from the beginning!

God knew from the beginning that love was the only answer to the dilemma of sin that prevents humanity and God from being in perfect relationship. So, in Leviticus, which is the Priest's handbooks for making sin offerings--sacrifices of atonement--we read this in 19:18, "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."

When John writes this to the early church, composed of both Jewish and Gentile converts, he is proclaiming that the command of God that Jesus proclaimed has been with them from the beginning, just as Jesus has been with God from the beginning. From the beginning of the sacrificial system, we hear the message that would be proclaimed by the One who is our propitiation--our perfect atoning sacrifice!

John continues in 1 John 2:8, "Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining."

This is most certainly a reference to Jesus' words found in the Gospel ofJohn 13:34-35. Jesus' proclaimed, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

The summation of the moral law of God is to be found in the command of love; and this love is exemplified supremely in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, who we, as believers--who know that we know--are called to imitate and by imitating become a great witness for the world to see! As our text reads, "it is seen in him and you" when we love! We, filled with the Holy Spirit, shines into a darkened world.

To understand this we need to dig into the life of Jesus Christ who expanded the old command to make it a new one. Love became new in Jesus Christ in two directions.

First, in Jesus love became new in the extent to which it reached. In Jesus love no longer simply reached out to those who were like you or clean (the Law in Leviticus prevented followers of God from reaching out to unclean people because it would then make them unclean and unable to be in fellowship), but now love reached out to the sinner; those who are unclean; those who were not like you!

Jesus revolutionized love forever when He stated, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

Jesus reaches beyond the preapproved religious boundaries of the Law and He forever widened the boundaries of love until not a single person was outside its embrace! I praise God for this because that love reached out far enough to reach me!

The length of God's love pulled me into God's fellowship and I stand here a product of this amazing grace to declare to you that no matter what you have done or where you have been God's love reaches out to you if only you will turn to Him and receive the free gift of acceptance.

The second way Jesus Christ made love new is the lengths to which it would go. No abuse of man can turn God's love in Jesus Christ to hate. God demonstrated the depth of His hesed --His covenant loving-kindness to us on the Cross of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus was on the Cross experiencing the absolute torment of man's rejection while experiencing God's wrath by taking the punishment for humanity's sins (including yours and mine) on Himself, he still demonstrated the extent of this new commandment. These final words of our Lord are recorded in the Gospel of Luke 23:34, "Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.'"

Paul prays for all believers in Jesus Christ to have the power to begin to understand this new love that Jesus proclaimed, lived, and demonstrated for us on the Cross of Calvary. He prays in Ephesians 3:17b-18, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." Yes LORD! Show us your Glory!

This, my brothers and sisters, is the winning touchdown of life's Superbowl! This is the Good News; the climax of history; the Final Victory! This is the love that has become the standard for all who know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent!

Look at the end of verse 8, "because the darkness is passing", or more literally, "the darkness is caused to pass," or "it is changed, so that it is absorbed!" "and the true light [of this Victory] is already shining." The Victory is present; today!

This wonderful theology must now take root and show itself in our lives; hence, verses 9-11: "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble [point of interest: the Greek word translated stumble is the word we get scandal from!]. ¹¹But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

John sees human relationships in black and white terms. It is either a case of love or hate; there is not neutrality in personal relationships...why? Because from John's viewpoint (What's that viewpoint: from the Cross where Jesus Christ has forgiven us and taught us about love!) you are either walking in the light of love or in the darkness of hatred!

The light shows you the way to God (It is revealing outward and inward!). The darkness blinds you; it obscures the path and we get lost. God does NOT cut Himself off from us (His grace perseveres our disobedience!), but by a lack of love we progressively isolate (sin isolates!) ourselves from the light of God's nature and presence! To put is simply: hatred prevents positive growth as a community and as individuals!

It is an appropriate interpretive jump to think of brother in this context as our neighbor in the context of Jesus' teachings. Jesus teaches us that our neighbor expands beyond our family, beyond our sex or sexuality, beyond our nationality or ethnicity, even beyond our religion (Jew or Gentile). It does not mean you love their lifestyle, their politics, or their views, but we are called to love them because Jesus died for that person as much as He died for you and me! "Hate the sin; LOVE the sinner!"

This all consuming love changes how we relate to people in our personal relationships! It changes how we view ourselves, our neighbor; our world! It is light!

But if you do have hatred in your life towards your neighbor then that is symptomatic to a bitterroot (spiritual stronghold!) of ungodly immoral behavior that will lead you away from the truth of God and into the lies of the Devil. He has deceived you and turned your face from the light and into the darkness! Don't give the Devil a foothold; turn away from the dark!

The Apostle Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4:30-32, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Are you struggling with hatred, bitterness, resentment in your life? [pause] You must confess that hatred and turn away from the sin that so easily ensnares and enslaves! Friends, we must love our neighbor as God first loved us! By this, we can know that we know Jesus Christ, by loving like Him!

**For this last point, we are going to approach the text a bit differently because of its poetic nature and because it is Family Day at FBC.

WE KNOW THAT WE ARE WALKING WITH JESUS CHRIST WHEN...WE ARE FAITHFUL ON LIFE'S JOURNEY! [12-14]

These poetic verses are written to all the believers (men and women; young and old) in the Church of Jesus Christ. Remember that John has used the term of endearment "dear children" throughout his letter. But, it is clear that with his word choices and the repetitious manner in which he has formed this section that he is writing to different generations in the church acknowledging the spiritual journey we share in common.

¹²I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. ¹³I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. ¹⁴I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

He starts by declaring the forgiveness of sins through the Name of Jesus Christ. That is the beginning of the journey and if we do not get this then there is no journey to Life! Family of God, we must model our behaviors and attitudes after that of Jesus Christ.

"Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.'" - Matthew 19:14

**I want to invite all of the children and youth to come up and sit on the stairs and parents you are welcome to come up with your small children. If you are under 18 years old then I invite you to come and sit on the prayer stairs.**

Did you know that 75% of all people who come to know the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ and become followers of Jesus Christ will do so by the age or 18!?!

If we are going to impact the world for Jesus, then we need to prioritize our ministries to the young people of the next generation. That is why FBC Family Life Center is going to live up to its name and be a church that simply does not do excellent children and youth ministry programs, but we are going to try to figure out how churches and families should truly partner together so that we can raise up a godly generation in our midst who will carry on the ministry of the Church and reach the nations for Christ!

[pull out Prayer Card Insert] That's why there is a "Praying for the Next Generation" insert in your Sermon Notes. We want to pray for our children and youth. We want to pray for ourselves to be Spiritual Role Models--disciples of Jesus Christ who are intentionally making disciples! FBC, do you want this to be the Family Life Center in name only or do you truly want to partner with families and raise up a godly generation in Henry County? [pause] OK, I hope you mean it because in the future I will be asking you to support the commitment you made today.

[focus on children up front] My dear children, you have heard the adults commit to partnering together to be a family for you and to impact your generation together. Does that sound good to you?

I want to help you start your journey with God by sharing with you about Jesus. And this is not just for the kids up front as I know there are some adults who want to start this journey today as well.

Life is a journey towards God, but along the way there are troubles and difficulties and we don't always make good choices. We hurt ourselves and other people with our choices and that makes God sad; those choices are called sin and they separate us from God.

But God sent His Son into the World to die on the Cross so that we can be forgiven of those sins forever and ever (12), so that we can know our God who is our Heavenly Father (13), so that we can have a strong faith even when its hard and our friends or teachers don't agree with us (14), and so that we can say no to people who ask us to do bad things or when we feel tempted by the Devil in our everyday lives (13, 14).

Without knowing Jesus and asking Him into our hearts, we get lost in our lives and on our spiritual journeys. We need His power and His love to grow up and live godly lives for Him!

The Apostle John, who met Jesus personally, said this so that you would hear it this morning, "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God" (1 John 5:3-5).

Dear children, do you want to ask Jesus Christ into your hearts right now?

RESPONSE TIME: Pastor Ken and his team are now going to lead us in a time of response. As the piano plays, I am going to lead our children & youth in a prayer to ask Jesus Christ into their lives. This is the first step, but it is a huge leap forward! If you want to say this prayer with us then I invite you to come forward (regardless of your age; this is for all people!) and join us. This is a sacred moment!

[Lead Sinner's Prayer]

I praise God for your decision today to ask Jesus Christ into your life! We are family and we are in this together--all the generations together!

As the worship team leads us in some response songs, I invite us to worship Christ and dedicate ourselves to this great mission field who are the children and youth of Henry County.

Let's stand and worship together.

[Nate to do the Benediction]