1 John 2 this morning. 1 John 2. And we'll begin in verse 3, but
I want to read verses 1 and 2 so that we have some context here. My little children, these things
write unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He
is the propitiation for our sins. So clearly, us sinning not is
not our hope before God. If you can be sinless, you don't
need a propitiation. We're encouraged not to sin,
we're exhorted not to sin, but we're also comforted, thank God,
in the fact that there is a propitiation for our sin, and an advocate
for us before the bar of God, Jesus Christ, the one who has
no sin, the righteous. But then, verse three, and hereby
do we know that we know him if we keep his commandments. Now I know the first thing that
comes to your mind when you read this Most likely Is we can't
keep his commandments So this is really no help as far as how
are we going to know whether we know him or not? Based on
that we can't keep his commandments That's what sin is not keeping
his commandments and John just said if we say we don't sin we're
lying So we don't keep his commandments Yeah But we're not talking right
now in this verse about justification before God. Well, we are, but
we're not talking about how we're justified before God. We're talking
about evidence that we are justified before God. And there's a difference. We're not talking about how you're
justified. You keeping God's commandments,
not keeping God's commandments, is not going to have anything
to do with your justification except that it precludes your
justification before God. We don't keep His commandments,
we know that. In that sense, perfectly, meritoriously before
God. But he's talking about evidence.
Do you know God? How are you going to know whether
you know God or not? So we're talking about evidence of justification
before God, of salvation, of knowing God, of being, whether
you're His or not. What evidence is there of that?
We're not saved by that evidence. But if we are saved by God's
free grace, free distinguishing. Sovereign. Grace. That evidence will exist according
to God's word. Not saved by works, we know that
not saved by work. Titus three, four, after that,
the kindness and love of God, our savior toward man appeared.
Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according
to his mercy, he saved us. Not by anything we do or don't
do, not by the deeds of the law, Paul said in Romans 3, shall
no flesh be justified in God's sight. According to his mercy,
he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of
the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ, our Savior. Our salvation comes through him,
not through us. But faith without works is not
saving faith. It's dead faith according to
James in James chapter two. Faith without works is dead.
And it's important that we understand that James in the book of James
is not talking about faith and works. He's talking about two
kinds of faith. Faith with works and faith without
them. And faith without works is dead
faith. It's man-made faith. It's man-generated
faith. It's not really faith at all.
It's what passes for faith in man's deluded mind. And it's
a simple matter of order. It's just a simple, it's a simple
matter of order, cause and effect. Which came first? Which causes
the other? Both are true. We have faith.
We have works. The scripture says we're ordained
unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should
walk in them. God calls them good work, so I don't see any
reason why we shouldn't, do you? If God does. But we need to understand
what they are and where they come from. And we need to understand
the order. We need to understand cause and
effect. The cause of our salvation is
the grace of God, the love of God, the free grace of God, by
which he sent his son to accomplish salvation for us. We have no
part in that. My only part in salvation is
that I need it. But there is an effect of salvation
that's clearly taught in the scriptures and it's evidence. The effect of that is that Christ
in us by his spirit indwelling us and bearing fruit through
us is our obedience to him. If you love me, keep my commandments. When you think of commandments,
don't just think of the 10 commandments that Moses gave on Sinai. Listen to John 6, 29. There were
some folks that said, what must we do that we might work the
works of God? And the Lord didn't say, thou shalt not kill, thou
shalt not steal, thou shalt not have any false God. He said,
here's the work of God. Do you believe on him whom he
hath sent? Do you believe God? Do you know God? Well, I think I
do. But you might be deceiving yourself. Do you believe on him? Do you
believe on him? Do you believe on Christ? Is
Christ your only hope before God? as a sin offering, as a
righteousness, as the righteousness that God will accept. 1 John 3, 23, this is his commandment
that we should believe on the name of his son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another as he gave commandment. So don't just think
of the 10 commandments, but think of All that he, everything
he said. This is about honoring him in
the doing of his will, doing his bidding, doing his service.
Hereby, we do know that we know him. And instead of saying, if
we keep his commandments like John did there, then plug in
what we just read. Hereby do we know that we know
him, if we believe on him. That fits pretty good, doesn't
it? It fits pretty good. Hereby do we know that we know
him if we love him. If we love his people. And don't miss the wording here.
I think this is important. It doesn't say hereby do we know
that we are saved if we keep his commandments. You say, well, it amounts to
the same thing, Chris. If you know him, you're saved. Yeah,
but it says, hereby do we know that we know him. What's the
difference? Works are not tied directly to
salvation here. It's not hereby do we know that
we're saved, that we keep his commandments. There's something
in between works and salvation here. It's Christ. There's going to have to be something
between your works and God. It's going to have to be His
Son. Knowing Him is life. Knowing Him is salvation. Not
keeping the commandments. Salvation is not by works. It
is by knowledge of Christ. And that's by grace. How do I
know then if I know Christ? Well, here's what John is saying.
If what he says means nothing to you, then you don't. It's pretty plain. If the word
of God, if his commandments, if his the word is statutes,
his principles, his way, his will, his word means nothing
to you, then you're not saved. And it does all your preaching
work salvation. No, the evidence states that
you don't know God. You're not saved by your works,
you're saved by knowing Him. If you know Him, then He has
ordained you unto good works. Well, and again, don't look at
your performance Don't say, well, I haven't killed anybody today.
I haven't committed adultery. I don't hate God. I'm doing pretty
good. A believer is not going to see
it that way. If you look at how you stack up, line upon line,
precept upon precept, how you stack up in keeping the commandments
of God, you're going to despair. If you're a believer, you're
not going to see any hope. But the general principle here is
this. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. He's a new
creation. And that is evidence of whether
he has made you new, whether he has created you new. That's
salvation, him creating you new. But if he says, let there be
light, there's going to be some light. And that's what John's talking
about here. Whether or not what he says means
something to you, and this is key now. And this is what he said, his
commandment, his statutes, his word, his gospel. Do you respond to that? Are you
obedient to his gospel, to his word? Solomon said this is the conclusion
of the whole matter fear God and do what he says and that
way there And whether or not what he says
means something to you is not evidence by what you say It's evidence by what you do John is just saying here the
same thing that James said when he said faith without works is
dead and Also what he said In James 1 22 be ye doers of the
word and not hearers only You remember what comes after that?
Be you doers of the word not the Ten Commandments not any
specific thing the whole Word of God the gospel is Believing
on Him, following Christ. What is the word? What is the
message of this book? Bow to my son, believe on my
son. The law itself, the Ten Commandments were given, what?
As a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Christ is the goal
of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. That's
what it's about. It's about Christ and honoring
and obeying Him, loving Him, bowing to Him, serving Him, believing
on Him. Be ye doers of that and not just
hearers only. What comes out of that? Deceiving
your own selves. If you're not a doer of the gospel,
you don't know the gospel. You're deceiving yourself. And you're playing games with
God. If you hear the word of God and
you don't respond to it other than just to say, I believe God's
word, You're deceiving yourself. Verse 4 in our text, look at
this, it continues, He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his
commandments, again, the whole, as Solomon said, in Ecclesiastes,
fear him, and if you fear him, you're gonna do what he says.
It doesn't mean you're gonna be perfect before him, and meritoriously
perfect before him, it just means you're gonna bow. You're gonna
obey him, you're gonna obey the gospel. You're gonna flee to
Christ like he said by his grace now Not not because you're smarter
than somebody that didn't about his grace. You're going to He
if you if you say, you know him and don't do that you're a liar
The truth is not in you But who so keepeth his word you see how
commandments and word are interchangeable there. It's not the ten commandments
It's not even doesn't even have to do with merit. I Christ is
our merit before God. It's about submitting to the
gospel. It's about actually believing and laying hold of Christ. Whoso
keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Not because you kept his word,
but if you keep his word, The love of God, it must be perfected
in you. Otherwise, you wouldn't have kept his word. That's what
John is saying. That's how you're able to keep
his word, because you love him. You don't obey him because you
don't want to go to hell when you die. You obey him because
you just flat love him. You can't help it. It's called a new nature in my
book. I'm pretty sure that's consistent with the word of God.
We have a new heart. We're a new creation. Salvation
is not just me knowing some things that I didn't used to know. It's
a complete transformation. And included in that is, it means
something to me when God says something. It doesn't say, whoso keepeth
his word is himself perfect. God's love is perfected. Us God's love it just simply
and that word perfected there. It means matured. It means complete
It means it's it's done what it was supposed to do. It's finished.
It's completed. It's accomplished what it was
given to do It's just saying the love of God has reached its
goal in you. It always does His word doesn't
return void If he sends his word to you or you will be a doer
of the word It has done in you what it does
what his love does. It causes you to obey, causes
you to submit to him, not perfectly, not like you even want to. Hereby know we that we are in
him. He that saith he abideth in him,
ought himself also so to walk, even as he It's not complicated, is it?
We have to remember the cause and effect. We love him, don't
we? We love him. That's what this
is talking about. The reason, you will notice in a minute in
some scripture how loving him and keeping his commandments
are inseparably bound together. And we do love him, but we love
him because, because he first loved us. We're
not getting any glory here. And if you love him, you don't
want any. You don't want any. Hereby know we. Now you see how
obeying his, obeying him and loving him, that word that in
the text there that we just read, the love of God is perfected
in us. Not just that he loves us, but his love is in us. We
love like he loved not exactly not perfectly not even don't
even start comparing it but We do love And he that loveth is born of
god But you see how obeying christ
and love are connected here he said in john 14 15 if you love
me keep my commandments And that's what we're talking about here.
We don't keep his commandments because, oh, I've got to measure
up to his to his perfection in order to get to heaven. You ain't
going to measure up to his perfection. And we know that Christ is our
righteousness before God. But we want to do what he says
because we love him. And never trust in what we do.
Also not having my own righteousness. But we know that he would have
us worship him. Don't we know that? And so here
we are. Why? Because you want to go to
heaven when you don't know? Because I love him. I kind of like worshiping
him, don't you? And I pray that he would enable
me to truly worship him and not just show up and be religious. If you love me, keep my commandments.
1 John 5, 3, for this is the love of God that we keep his
commandments. You think about that. This is
the love of God, our love for God. This is our love for God,
that we keep his commandments. If you don't give a hoot what
God said, and you go around saying how much you love God, you're
a liar. Oh, and I am too. And his commandments are not
grievous. They're just not, are they? Is it hard for you to worship
the Lord? Is it hard for you to submit
to his sovereignty? Is that difficult? He said, my yoke is easy. My
burden is light. And I find it to be so, don't
you? Now, if I was trying to measure up to God's standard,
if I was trying to be holy enough, you know, to be worthy to stand
in God's presence, you talk about a burden there. Oh, if you're
heavy laden like that, you need rest. But gospel commandments,
gospel obedience is not grievous at all. Would it be too, would I be going
too far to say we've got nothing to lose? If you're in Christ,
you've got nothing to lose. You can't mess it up by what
you do. It kind of makes it easy, doesn't
it? Kind of makes me light. That's
a yoke I can bear there. I can't mess it up. If I'm yoked
to him, he's doing all the work. I'm just alone for the ride and
happy singing all the way. We love him because he first
loved us. And if we love him, what he says
will be important to us and we'll take it to heart. Well, as Solomon
said so many times in the Proverbs, we'll apply our hearts to his
wisdom. And we'll pray, Lord, help us.
Help us to honor you. And then in verse seven here,
he said, Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but
an old commandment, which you had from the beginning. This
ain't new. This ain't a new gospel. Oh, gospel, you know, Of faith
plus works, you know, or we're adding something to the god.
No, we're not it's always been this way God's saving grace has
always changed people His salvation has always been a work for us
and in us always has been The old commandment is the word which
you have heard from the beginning of Now John says here in verse
7, I write no new commandment unto you. And then he turns right
around in verse 8 and says, a new commandment I write unto you.
So it's important that we distinguish between the two here. He tells
us what the old commandment is. It's the same gospel, which was
preached from the beginning. That's what he said. I'm not
adding to the gospel here. I'm not changing the gospel.
Romans 1 1 Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ called to be an
apostle separated under the gospel of God, which he had promised
to for by his prophets into the Holy scripture. Paul said, I'm
preaching the same thing God has promised from the beginning
by his prophets. And it concerns his son. It doesn't
concern you doing things and not doing it concerns his son,
Jesus Christ, our Lord, which was made of the seed of David,
according to the flesh. The good tidings were promised
from the beginning by the prophets, and then one day, an angel appeared
and said, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. The
tidings that were promised are come, a savior is born. Those tidings that were prophesied
from the beginning concerned his son, Jesus Christ, and the
angel said, here he is. The gospel's a person. What john
says in chapter one and in the beginning of chapter two here
about sin And how that sin must be cleansed by the blood of jesus
christ That's the message of the old testament, too Without
the shedding of blood. There is no remission john says
here christ is the propitiation for our sins And he is our advocate
with the father. He is our sacrifice that well,
that's what we read in hebrews this morning That we have a high
priest. We have an advocate We have a
mediator, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's our sacrifice. He's our
sin offering. He's our praise. He's everything
that the Old Testament pictured and foreshadowed. It's the same
gospel. But a new one too, a new commandment
too. Again, verse eight, a new commandment
I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because
the darkness is past and the true light Now shineth. Oh, that's
so key. That's so important here. What
the word god said there is a lot said right there in that verse
The new commandment now is love. That's what he's talking about
love If you love him keep his commandments if you love And
this is what our lord said in john 13 34 a new commandment.
I give unto you that you love one another You see you'll see
that in the verses after this. In fact, look at verse nine.
Look at verse nine He that sayeth he is in the light and hateth
his brethren is in darkness. This is really the commandment
he's talking about, love. Isn't that the great commandment
of the law? When that man said, Master, which
is the great commandment? The Lord said that you love the
Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself.
In this, all the commandments are contained in that. Love,
love for God, love for your brethren. Well, that's not new though.
Why is John calling it new? Because we were never able to
even know what that was until Christ came. We don't even know
what love is until, that's what he says. He says, the darkness
is past and the true light now shineth. Now we know what love
is. This is new because in Christ,
now we know what this is all about. We know what it means
to love God. Didn't he just get through saying
in the text that we read, we ought to love and serve God as
he did, as he, we ought to walk as he walked. How are you going
to do that? Well, you have to see him walk
first, aren't you? We don't know what love is until we see Christ. And you don't know what, what
love is either. Just because he came to this
world, he got to reveal himself in your heart. The light shining
now. Now this commandment is new to
me. Love. Oh, Lord, teach me that. That you love one another, a
new commandment I give unto you, Christ said that you love one
another as I have loved you. How are you going to do that
before Christ comes and loves us? That's why it's new. By this shall all men know that
you're mine It doesn't say by this shall all men know that
you are disciples The key word there is mine You're mine because
you love You have true love for one another Not new in the sense that it
never existed before or was never told before the very chief commandment
is love as we just said Matthew 22 36 Love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind This is
the first and great commandment and the second is like it thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself on these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets so even when the ten commandments
were given this was given to But this commandment is new in
the sense that we could never even know what it is until Christ
came. We don't know what law keeping is. You're not ever going
to experience it. But you can look to Christ and
know what it is. And try, try to be like him. We ought also
to walk even as he walked. As he walk. That's what love
is. Now we're to imitate that. Now
what we saw in chapter 1, be ye imitators of Christ. So now we have this new commandment
given which is an old one but in a whole new light. There he
said the light shining now the light shining that's what makes
it new under the new under the old covenant Those ten commandments
now that he just said Loving God and loving your neighbor
Is the fulfillment of all of that? Under the old covenant
that was a requirement that could never be met by any sinner Never
be met. But under the new covenant, this
is a revelation that is fulfilled in Christ. Look at that in our
text. Verse eight again, he said again,
a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him. You see that? It's true in him. It's true in him. This is not
something that we're trying to attain to. It's already accomplished. It's already done. It's already
true in Him. Do you love God? You can't call what's in my heart
love for God. But in Him I do. In Him I do. It's true in Him
and in you. If it's true in Him, it's true
in you because you're in Him. The light has shined on you.
The darkness has passed. We're not what we used to be
because we're in Him. Not because we've gotten better.
This flesh don't get any better. But because we're in Him. And
this is true in Him. The love of God is fulfilled
in Him. And it's fulfilled in you too. If you're in Him. We are exhorted to something
that's already true. And it is true in us. only because
it is true in Him. As He is, so are we in this world. I know that that's true in the
world to come. As He is, so are we. We're going to be just like
Him. We're going to awake with His
likeness. But you know that's true even now if you're in Christ.
As He is, so are you in this world. Isn't that glorious? It don't get no more glorious
than that. All believers love God and love
one another. But we're exhorted here to do so,
so that we'll be ever vigilant and desires to express that love
of God in all that we do. We don't love him meritoriously.
We don't love him even worth talking about here in his love,
not that we love God. But that he loved us. But he
manifests his love in us. And we bear the fruit of the
spirit, which is love. And he said, here is my father
glorified that you bear a bunch of it. And that way, you bear
much fruit. Oh, God, help us to love you.
Help us to love you like we ought. May this always be uppermost
in our minds so that we will do what we do not to gain the
love of the world, which would be our fleshly tendency, but
to express our love for Christ and his church. The fruit of
the Spirit is love. My little children, 1 John 3,
18, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed,
in what we do. and in truth. That's what this
is saying. Oh, may it be so by God's grace.
Let's look at these next couple of verses just very briefly because I want to begin after them next
time. Verse 12, I write unto you little children because your
sins are forgiven you for his namesake. Notice this first of
all he said that I don't I'm writing unto you little children
not so that your sins will be forgiven you Because they are
in that that's so instructive Not so that by keeping his commandments
you'll please God and he'll forgive you because of something you
do No, he says here if your sins weren't already forgiven. I Freely
if your sins weren't already forgiven by free sovereign distinguishing
grace by the propitiation blood of Christ propitiating blood
of Christ Which cleanses us from all sin and I use that word because
it's right there in the context. He is the propitiation of our
sin Not just to be you know using a bunch of adjectives right there
in the context Cleanses us from all sin if that wasn't true. He said I wouldn't be writing
to you about keeping his commandments You see that in this verse? If
that wasn't, if he hadn't already forgiven your sins by that precious
blood, I wouldn't be talking to you about keeping his commandments.
That's not the gospel. This is not a message for lost
people. You see that in this verse, in verse 12? It's not
a message for lost people. Keep his commandments is a message
for people who are forgiven of their sins. That's an exhortation to save
people, saved by free sovereign grace, through the propitiating
blood of Christ. And he is saying here that this
is our motivation, that our sins are forgiven. I'm writing to
you to do this because your sins are forgiven. That's a pretty
good reason, isn't it? Didn't Paul say, we reckon that
if he died for us, we ought to live for him? I'm going to quote
that verse again in a minute. I know I quote that verse every
time I preach, but here we are, aren't we? It's not much of a
stretch, is it? You'll see what I'm saying in
a minute. This is our motivation too. He doesn't say these things
are right unto you so that you can go to heaven when you die.
Don't keep his commandments. Don't love so that something
will happen. Love because something has happened. You see that in this verse? Don't
love him to try to attain to something. Love him because something's
already been accomplished by Christ. Our sins are forgiven. Not to try for something to happen
because it has happened and it wasn't something you did. It
was something he did. He so loved us that he gave his
only begotten son He so loved us that he laid down his life
for his friends now love him enough to do what he says That's
what he's saying here because he loved us that much If you think about verse 12 here
because your sins are forgiven And think about luke chapter
7 where That sinner woman came and washed his feet, and he said,
whoever is forgiven much, the same loveth much. I write unto you this new commandment
that you love, because your sins are forgiven. Now, how much were
they forgiven? How much did he forgive you? Her sins, which are many, are
forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little. 2 Corinthians 5, 14, here it is
now. You've heard this one before.
For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge. And you know why we judge the
way we do? Because of what John just said in the verse before
I just read. The darkness is past, the light's shining now.
He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined
in our hearts. That's why we don't judge things
the way we used to. Not because we smart, not because
we spiritual, not because we decided something, because God
shined a light in our hearts. We thus judge that if one died
for all, then we're all dead. He died for us because we was
dead. And that he died for all that
They which live now should not hence we were dead,
but now we live. And if you do, if you live because
he died, you should not henceforth live under yourself, but under
him, which died for you and rose again. You see how that kind of goes
with what we talked about this morning. And he said in verse
13, we've got to look at this, we've got a couple of minutes.
Verse 13 and 14 together. I write unto you fathers because
you have known him that is from the beginning. Now notice the
difference. I write unto you young men because
you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you little
children because you have known the father. I have written unto
you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning.
Fathers know some things. Nothing yet as we ought to know,
of course, but fathers know some things. Young men, well, they don't know much, but
they think they do. And you know what characterizes
young men? You're in a fight. You're overcoming the wicked
one. That's what John said. If you're one of the ones, by
God's grace, who have overcome, because young men are in a fight.
Do you remember that? It hadn't been that long ago
since I was a teenager. It's a battle, isn't it? It's
a battle. I mean, it's still there. We're
still in the battle, aren't we, Bob? But boy, when you're young, oh
my, remember now your creator in the days of your youth. Because you're strong, that's
part of the battle. You see that there? You're strong,
and the word of God abideth in you, and you've overcome the
wicked. Well, that's the only way you will, is if his word
abides in you, by his grace. Fathers, young men and little
children, different stages of life, and therefore they face
different circumstances. As I said, fathers know a few
things. They know about the love of God in Christ. We've heard
the gospel how many times in our lifetime? And we've learned
a little bit, a little bit. We know a few things. Young people,
as I said, they're just, it's war, it's war. And little ones
don't know much, but what do they know? They know who their
father is, don't they? And then what he said here, you
know your father. Each stage of life is very different.
The circumstances are different. The challenges are different.
The needs are different. But the exhortation to all of
them is the same. It's love. And the reason we
know what love is, is because the light has come. Because of
a person. Because of him who himself is
the love of God. Walk in the love of God. In Christ. Walk in that love. Look at verse
15. Don't love the world. Neither
the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the
love of the Father is not in him now. For all that is in the
world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof. But he that
doeth the will of God. This is good exhortation, isn't
it? He that doeth the will of God,
abideth forever. Little children. We'll look at the rest of this
chapter I pray this is instructive and clear may the Lord teach
us Let's pray together