My text is in 1 John chapter
2. 1 John chapter 2. The commandments of our Lord
to the believer are spiritual in nature. And what I mean by
that is we don't fulfill them according to the works and the
strength and the abilities of this flesh. That's not how we
obey the Lord. Rather, the obedience of faith,
it's a testimony, it bears witness to what Christ works in his child. It's according to his grace and
his power and his spirit, according to his salvation. When we consider
these commandments, I'd like to return to the passage that
we looked at last week, which was 1 John chapter 5. I want
you to remember this passage when you are reading in 1 John
chapter 2. It adds some context here for
us, how we are to hear this word. 1 John 5 verse 3 says, for this
is the love of God. This is the love of God, that
we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. If your religion grieves you,
it is because you are trying to accomplish these things by
the law, by the flesh, by threatenings, by whippings, by beatings upon
yourself, and therefore, it's grievous. That's not the love
of God. Perfect love drives out fear. When we do that, we're not living
by the faith of Christ who said, come unto me, ye that are heavy
laden, ye that are weary. I'll give you rest. You'll find
rest for your souls in me. The salvation of our Lord Jesus
Christ is not drive the child of God back to the law. Now with a renewed determination
to try and do it better and be more accurate or more faithful
in keeping the law. The salvation of Jesus Christ
accomplishes salvation in us and it bears fruits of righteousness
in us. the fruit of faith, the fruit
of hope, the fruit of love is wrought in us, born in us by
the Spirit, and therefore we seek to honor and love our God
according to the Spirit, according to Christ, not with bitterness,
not with strife, not with enmity and anger in our hearts, but
we love the Lord, and we're thankful to the Lord for what He's done
for us. And so we seek to serve our God
and serve our brethren in Christ, to love them as Christ loved
us. And in that hope of Christ, we
are strengthened, taught, and turned from the lusts of the
flesh, which war against the soul. And our faith, which he
gives to us, overcomes the world. Look at verse four there, 1 John
5, verse four, for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the
world. Under the law, we labor grievously
because this world is an evil place, and frankly, we're evil
by nature. This flesh is evil, this flesh
is darkness, this flesh is corrupt, this flesh is vile, this flesh
is born dead in trespasses and sins. And the darkness is within
and without us by nature, And therefore, we don't overcome
the world by the works of the flesh. Rather, that which overcomes
the world is faith, because Christ overcame the world, and our faith
is fixed in him. And that's what John says, this
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the
world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? And so when we look at passages
like this in 1 John, let's go back to 1 John 2, when we look
at this, remember that this is a spiritual work. This is the
work of the love of God in Christ Jesus, which works these things
in our hearts. And that's how we're to hear
the commandments of God. And that gives us a right understanding
concerning these things. So with that in mind, let's read
verse seven. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you,
but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
which ye have heard from the beginning. The verse here refers
to what has come before, what John taught us before, as well
as what follows after. But let's consider this in what
we heard before. We saw the last time that we
were here a few weeks ago back in December, actually. It speaks to, it concerns that
which is revealed unto us in the redemption of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we saw that by the grace
of our Lord, repentance has worked in us. We saw how that believers
are commanded to repent, but not as this world teaches. We
are commanded to repent from trusting the things that we by
nature trust in to save us, our good works, our turning from
sin. Our doing better, our giving
or making sacrifices. Those are the things that we
think save us and that earn us favor with God. And the Lord,
Paul said to the Athenians, the times of this ignorance, God
winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. To repent of your idolatry. And then that leads us to the
second thing. that faith is wrought in them
that hear, and God commands us to faith in Christ, to believe
Christ. You that hear the command to
repent, to be turned from dead works that cannot save, are commanded,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. Believe
him. God has sent him for this very
purpose, to save us from our sins. And the third thing we
saw is that we are commanded to love one another. Love is
wrought in us, and I think that's really one of the primary things
that John has in view here in particular, because he tells
us God is love. God is love, and that's such
a foreign concept to us, especially when we've labored in religion
under the law, under bondage and the yoking bondage of the
law, under the threats and the thunderings and the lightnings,
it's hard to see the love of God, it's impossible to see in
that spirit, coming to God in that manner. But we are commanded
to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. And if we could
get hold of that, what a blessed place it would be. And if we
could get hold of that in spirit and in truth, if we could love
one another and be patient with one another and be kind toward
one another and serve one another in the spirit of love, it wouldn't
be as bad while we wait for the return of our Lord to come and
take us to himself. So all of God's commands to us,
what the Lord shows us is that they come to us with power from
on high. They're given to us. What he
commands of us, he gives us by grace to receive it, to hear
it, and to do those things, to repent, to believe, to love the
Lord our God and love our brethren. He accomplishes obedience to
the command by his sovereign power and grace in us. It doesn't
come to the flesh. This flesh cannot do it. But
when He gives grace, when He gives birth to the new man, we
hear that word and we believe Him. So these are not new commandments
of which John speaks, but they are commandments which were given
to us from the beginning. Reading from Romans 1, let me
just say this, Romans 1 in verse 1, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ,
called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which
he had promised afore, which he promised afore by his prophets
in the holy scriptures concerning his son Jesus Christ our Lord,
which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh
and declared to be the son of God with power according to the
spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. And so we see
these commandments rest in the promise of God made unto us and
at the foundation of the world back in the garden of Eden when
we fell in sin and our God said to the serpent in the hearing
of Adam and Eve and us in them, and he said, I shall put enmity
between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. It shall
bruise thy head, or crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise his
heel. He'll conquer you. And it shows
us that God has promised that he shall make all things right. He shall reconcile all things. And so these commandments come
to us with power according to the gift of our God and Savior. When He arose on high and let
captivity captive and gave gifts unto men, He blesses us to hear
this word. Now to help us understand this
truth, John adds this in verse 8. Verse 8. So 1 John 2 again,
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. What does John mean? He had just
said, he first said, I'm writing no new commandment. Now he says
I'm writing a new commandment. I believe what he's saying there
is this is the old commandment, which is now known, now made
known unto us by the Spirit of God, whereby we understand the
mind of God. We have the Spirit of God, like
we read from 1 Corinthians 2. He's given us His Spirit, whereby
we may know Him and understand the mystery of godliness, which
is revealed in Christ. Not in your doing. Not in you
being whipped and beaten and threatened. Don't do this or
else. But in Christ. He's our life. He's our life. He's our salvation. And so we see and understand
these things now in Him. In the newness and brightness
of the day in which it is now declared unto us the day of grace. Because our Lord and Savior has
come He has conquered our foes, He has delivered us from death,
and He gives us life and light in Him by His gifts of mercy
and grace. And so, how do we understand
this new commandment? Well, first of all, it's new
in its explanation. It's new in its explanation.
Turn over to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 and verse
43, this is recording of our Lord's Sermon
on the Mount. The people had never heard anything
like this before. He says in verse 43, so Matthew
5 verse 43, He hath heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy. Man hath found a way to justify
his hatred. He found a way to justify his
hatred. Now in verse 44, but I say unto
you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use
you and persecute you. I was thinking of this and I'll
try to give you a very practical way in which we are to hear this
word, in which we are to love our enemies. You know, sometimes
we are to live at peace with all men as much as it's possible
with you to do that. But there are times when we come
across another individual and just something happens. maybe sparks fly, I don't know,
but something happens, and maybe not even what you said, and you
go away and you're thinking about it later, and you think, hey,
wait a minute, you know, and you start building this thing
up in your mind, and you start getting angry, and you start
thinking thoughts about this person, and we start judging
them, right? We're thinking ill towards them,
and we're thinking, I know what they know, or I know what they're
going to do, or I know what they're gonna say, and if they said this,
I would say this, and you start building this whole thing up,
and before you know it, you're angry, and you're upset, and
you're annoyed, and bitter about something. When that happens
now, by the grace of God, I just go to the Lord in prayer for
one thing, he tells us, take that burden. There's things that
sometimes it can have ramifications that are beyond me, right? Like what happens if, well, anyway,
like there's all kinds of ramifications that can come and we hold that
burden and we get all worried like, oh no, this is gonna, they're
gonna sue me or this is gonna happen, you know, all kinds of
things that we get into. And it's just a burden. Well,
I don't know how to fix that thing or parse through things
or solve things. I've been trying to fix things
all my life, and I don't think I've ever fixed anything. Especially
when it comes to a person, it's near impossible. But the Lord
is able. And so we go to the Lord in prayer. He says, cast all your care upon
me. on him before he careth for you.
So that's one thing. We take that care and just leave
the burden with him, especially when it's something where it
could be a legal thing or something and you don't know what they're
going to do. I just lay it before the Lord and stop worrying about
it and just trust him. And the other thing is when it's
an individual and something's happened and now you're thinking
ill towards them or evil thoughts toward them, I find myself praying
and the first thing I'm praying for is Lord, forgive me. Because
now I'm judging them. I'm making stuff up. I don't
even know if these things are on their hearts or mine, but
I'm making things up, and I'm thinking ill of them. And even
if they are thinking those things towards me, I'm not to think
this way, and it doesn't do anything profitable at all, at all. And so what I find myself doing
now is just pray, Lord, be gracious to them. Lord, bless them. And
I don't have any problem with that, because if the Lord is
gracious to them, that would be the best thing. Because then,
any hatred of me that they have would be gone as well. If he's
gracious toward them, then their heart toward me is going to be
turned. And any enmity that's there will
be gone. And there will be friendship,
and fellowship, and reconciliation, and joy, and rejoicing. Pray
for your enemies. Pray for those where you think
that there's something between you. Leave it with the Lord and
trust Him. It'll do your heart good, and
then you can go on about your day without thinking of it and
getting mad about it, and you can't do nothing about it anyway,
so just leave it with the Lord and pray to Him. He told His
disciples in John 13, 34, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I
have loved you, that ye also love one another. And so it's
new in its explanation. It's new in its explanation.
He prayed for us, let us pray also one for another. Additionally,
it's newly exemplified by Christ. It's newly exemplified by Christ. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life. Newly exemplified. We never saw nothing like that.
We didn't understand it in the ceremonial law when they were
slaying the lambs and slaying the oxen and slaying the doves
and putting to death all these animals for our sins. We didn't
see it, but now we see it. Now we see the love of God. Now
we see the purpose of God. Now we see the promise of God
fulfilled in Him. Our Father sent the Son into
the world to save His people from their sins. He spared Him
not, but delivered Him up for us. All His sheep, all His people,
wherever they're scattered, Christ saved them to the uttermost.
Our Lord willingly laid down his life for his bride who was
born in sin, born under the wrath of God, born a rebel and a sinner
and a wretched enmity against God. And he laid down his life. God commended his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And then it's newly revealed
in us, meaning it's a spiritual work of grace brought in us by
the regeneration of the Holy Ghost. We are born again, brethren. Therefore, Paul said, if any
man be in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed
away. Behold, all things are become
new. They're all new in Christ. The
law of God to love one's neighbor as himself is written upon our
hearts, upon a heart now circumcised, where that veil of flesh which
laid over it, whereby we thought we knew something and didn't
know anything and only did the works of the flesh, that's now
removed and his law is written upon our hearts. And we hear
that word which says, all the law, is fulfilled in one word,
even in this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. And so this is the sense in which
this old commandment is now a new commandment. It's newly explained,
being taught to us by Christ. It's newly exemplified by our
Lord through the redemption of Christ for his people on the
cross and witnessed in his resurrection and it's newly revealed in us
by regeneration. Now John adds this phrase at
the end of verse 8 saying, because the darkness is past and the
true light now shineth. Let me explain this a little
bit more of what John means by the darkness is past and the
true light now shineth. There's two explanations I think
are really good and both of them are rooted in the the regeneration,
I'm sorry, the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're
both rooted in him and what he's done. So first, when our Lord
came into the world and he accomplished our redemption, what happened
was the light and the glory of Christ, which was hidden under
that ceremonial law, was now laid bare. Now it was made plain. Now we saw, oh, that's why God
did those things in the law. Now I see, for they picture Christ
who was to come. Now I see the Passover lamb which
was slain. It pictures Christ who came,
the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. The glories of God's grace toward
us in Christ, which had been hid, but now is made manifest
to us, is done so through the preaching of the gospel, where
the mysteries of his righteousness are understood and taught to
the children of God and received by us by the Spirit of God who
takes the things of Christ and shows them unto us, making us
to see and to understand. The law had cast shadows upon
the love of God. When I was younger and we were
younger and first beginning to seek the Lord, it was so confusing
with the law. And what that did, it just cast
such a dark shadow on the love of God so that we couldn't see
it. Because there was always this threatening of being beaten
and punished and going to hell. And it just contradicted what
Christ was said to have accomplished for his people. And it just kept
turning our eyes back to this flesh. It all cast a shadow on
the things of the love of God that men use to divide and to
create divisions and schisms and enmity among the people,
because they don't speak according to the truth, and they speak
confusion, and they just don't declare Christ as he's revealed
in the scripture, and what he has accomplished. making it as
something for you to accomplish. Rather than declare to you what
Christ has sovereignly accomplished for his people and works by his
power, we just declare it. But he's the one who gives the
faith that hears that word in spirit and in power and receives
that word, believing the Lord Jesus Christ. But now we see
and understand in him his love for all men in the sense of not
just the Jews, but he has his people scattered among the Gentiles
also, that we may go and preach this word to every man, knowing
that God is able to seek out and find his lost sheep and bring
them out of darkness into this light which he's now given to
us. We see his love in calling sinners to repentance toward
God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. We see his promises
fulfilled in Christ. and how these things speak of
him. We see the darkness, he brings
us from the darkness and the shadows of the law, it's past. It's all put away because Christ
is the light of God which has come into the world. He's the
light and life of man. And though we didn't understand
him, though we didn't recognize him, Now by His grace, having
done this work of redemption, having sent His Holy Spirit,
we now see Him and know this is the light. This is that light
which shone upon the earth back in Genesis 1-3 when God said,
let there be light, and there was light. The uncreated light,
the Savior, shone upon us, declaring God's gracious will and purpose
to save a people here. To the praise, glory, and honor
of His name. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness,
hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And the second
explanation of the darkness being removed is understood by spiritual
regeneration, meaning the darkness of our hearts and minds is now
lifted and removed so that we understand the things of God
in Christ. He makes them personally known
to us that Christ died for my sins, that he bore my sins and
put them away on the tree. And though we still see through
a glass darkly, yet he gathers us and he preaches this word
to us. and feeds us and nourishes us
and strengthens us and corrects us and keeps us and leads us
to Himself in the way so that the hatred we held and the works
of the flesh that we trusted in against Him and against our
own selves, they're now seen and understood for what they
are. That's flesh. That's folly. That cannot save. Give me Jesus. Give me Christ. Give me the Lord because He's
my Savior. And we see that now by his grace
and power. Now, here's a help for us to
know whether we are in the light of Christ, right? Because many
of us grew up so much with this conditional thing, right? If
you do this, then God will do that. And so we get all confused
and worried that we don't know because for so long we heard
the truth that spoken in such a way that it made faith sound
like it was something that you produced by your flesh. And you
had to do it right, and otherwise you weren't gonna get saved,
you know, as they would say it. But no, now we see that we declare
these things. And you that believe, that is
the testimony of God's gracious salvation in you. And here, what
he says is, verse nine, 1 John 2, 9, he that saith he is in
the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. And so what he's saying here
is there are some who say they're in the light, they want to profess
to be in the light and be partakers of the inheritance of the saints
and light, but he's saying if they hate their brother, and
this can be taken very broadly, right? All men are brethren in
a sense. We're all from Adam. God is our
Father. He created all of us in that
sense. Or, by regeneration, those that
are born again by the Spirit of God and are the children of
God, our Father, that man who yet hates in his heart, has hatred
in his heart for his brother, John says he's a liar and the
truth is not in him. He's yet in darkness, even until
now. One of the old writers said it
this way as, light and heat is to faith and love. In other words, where there's
faith in the heart, you that believe Christ, because he works
that faith, he gives it. You that believe Christ have
love in your heart. And you do desire to love your
brethren and to love your enemies. in such a way that Christ loved
you. And so we tell others, all men,
all women, of what Christ has done for us, praying for them. Not to be obnoxious, but because
we want them to hear. And pray for them that God would
enable them to hear. Verse 10 says it this way, he
that loveth his brother abideth in the light. and there is none
occasion of stumbling in him. And so the light of Christ in
him is the cause of his love. And this is what I was getting
at when I said earlier that he creates faith. He creates love. It's not a work that we do. The cause of his love is seen
in the effect it has upon us. He loveth his brother, clearly
therefore, he abideth in the light. He that loves is abiding
in the light. John 13, 35, by this shall all
men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another. And so we're not his disciples
because we love, what he's saying is we love because we are his
disciples. We are. We have the light and
life of Christ in us and therefore his light and life is witnessed
in us. If we are his, we do believe. If we are his, we do love. And
we do have that desire. And as you know, as I said before,
these lusts rise up in the flesh because we're still in the flesh.
But we don't want to live in sin. We don't want to continue
on in that darkness and to just feed and fan the flames of the
lust of the flesh. No, we turn to the Lord and say,
Lord, forgive me. I don't want to be bitter towards
this person. I don't know what they're saying.
I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to parse it.
I don't know how to make it right. Lord, forgive me for my sin and
be gracious to them. Have mercy upon them. Bless them,
Lord. And bring reconciliation, Lord. what we're turned, it's
not that we don't think evil thoughts, it's not that that
lust doesn't rise up, it does, but because we are His, He turns
us and instructs us and says, don't do that, do this, pray
for them, pray for them, and I'll take care, trust Him. Verse
11, but he that hated his brother is in darkness and walketh in
darkness and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness
hath blinded his eyes." There's people who just, they will not
hear this. Nope, I don't love, I hate them. There's people that will go on
and what he's saying is, that's not the love of God. The Spirit
of God doesn't do that. And so, ye therefore that hear
and believe, walk in that light. Paul said it this way in Ephesians
4, 17 and 18, This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that
ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of
their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from
the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the
blindness of their heart. And I would encourage you this
week if you remember that Ephesians 4 is a good companion chapter
to this chapter. They say things differently,
but Paul is exhorting us to walk in love. He's exhorting us to
speak the truth in love. He's exhorting us to grow in
the grace of Christ. In that chapter there, they say
it a little differently, but they're saying the same thing.
And the life of Christ is manifested in the child of God. The point
is it's not, don't hear this as a do this or else, because
this flesh I can't make myself love someone that I hate, but
Christ can. He can work that in us. He can
turn the heart. He can give us light and life
and faith and a willingness to pray for our enemies, to be understanding,
to trust the Lord in it, to trust the Lord in it. And so this word
is spoken to those who see the light of Christ. It comes with
power and grace and we live by his grace. So John is speaking
of the glorious grace of God which manifests the truth of
his word in the hearts of his people. He's encouraging us in
the new man which hears his voice and follows him. Now let me just
finish up here. I just want to touch on verses
12 through 14 here. He's speaking to us, didn't he? We all fall into one of these
three categories. Little children, young men, or
fathers. If you're a male or female, we
fall into one of these three categories here. And he says,
I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven
you for his name's sin. He's saying, you've heard and
believed that Christ has put away your sin by his redemption.
Verse 13, I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that
is from the beginning. He's saying, you know, you now
see in the reading of the prophets, you see the promises of God revealed
in Christ. And you believe, you see how
he's the fulfillment of all these scriptures and of the prophets
that spoke of these things. I write unto you, young men,
because ye have overcome the wicked one. In other words, you're
now one of the just who live by faith. You walk by faith. That's what he's saying there.
I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.
He's encouraging you that are young believers, young in the
faith, to see how the Lord is growing. in grace, and giving
you the milk of his word. I have written unto you fathers,
because ye have known him that is from the beginning." In other
words, you see from the beginning it all testifies of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I have written unto you young
men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you,
and ye have overcome the wicked one. This is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. Even our faith. And so John is writing these
words, these living words to living souls. These are living
words to living souls. They're not to be heard as threatening,
there to be heard as comforting words to you that believe Christ,
that you hear them, that if something's out of the way, it needs to be
corrected, let it be corrected by the Lord. Hear the word and
pray and trust Him to teach you these things. So walk in that
light, be fervent in this truth to walk in love, not putting
a stumbling block before yourselves by maintaining hatred or trying
to hurt anybody. Don't get back at anybody. Leave
that with the Lord. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the
Lord. For all we know, he put that
sin away in Christ. So who are we to exact it? Just
trust the Lord. Trust Him. It's of His grace
and mercy that we walk in the light of His word. Trust Him. He testifies of His grace in
you by faith, love, and hope. Walk in these things. greatest
of these of course is love because love never goes away and faith
will one day become sight hope we won't hope for that which
we receive but love will remain so i pray the lord bless that
word to your heart's breath amen our gracious lord we thank you
for your salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, help us not
to hear these words as a threat, as a law, but Lord, help us to
hear them as living souls, living creatures, new creatures made
alive in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would love one another. Write your perfect law on our
hearts. to love our God with all our
heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Lord, help us to hear these words in spirit and in truth, and to
walk in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his name
we pray and give thanks. Amen.