I was talking with a clergy friend who asked me what I had been preaching about recently on Sundays at Brenchley. I replied that we were doing a short series on the letters of John. ‘Oh’, he said, ‘some tough lessons there! Are they still coming?’
Well I have to admit that it is very encouraging to see you all this morning - but he has a point! The teaching in the letters of John, although immensely encouraging to those who want to know God and not just to know about him, does have some tough things to say concerning just what genuine and effective Christianity is all about. We’ve already heard from John that knowledge of God is not just – as some were arguing in John’s day – the preserve of an elite few but, rather, is for anyone and everyone, whatever their social standing, whatever their intellectual credentials – or lack of them, whatever their track record to date: Jesus invites all to know him personally, to follow him, and by doing so to discover not only the real meaning of life but also its true purpose, and our ultimate destiny. Certainly today many still search for these things or remain ignorant of them – the real meaning of life, its true purpose, and our ultimate destiny. Equally so, there are still, just as in John’s day, those who are too easily distracted by the temptations of the world, by the arguments of the spiritually blind, or by their own pride in themselves and their own so-called knowledge.
John, Jesus’ intimate companion, who knew Jesus in the flesh, who met with him after his resurrection, and who continued to know him through the Holy Spirit, has explained that it is only as we commit ourselves to him in faithful service and in sacrificial discipleship that we may truly know him.
And our motivation for doing so, says John, must surely be the incredible love that he has already shown for us in dying in your place and mine in order to reconcile us to a perfectly just and holy God, a God who hates but sorts out sin.
Now here in chapter three, John reminds his readers of God the Father’s love for them. (Remember, he is writing to people who are already Christians but who are being plagued by false teachers attempting to tempt them away from orthodox faith.) It’s true in life, isn’t it, that so often we actually need to be reminded of facts and of the truth we already know rather than we need to learn something new. One of the great temptations of the world and of those who peddle its anti-God philosophy and principles is the worship of novelty, especially in the areas of morality and social norms. The world tries to persuade us not to listen to what God has already revealed about human nature and about human behaviour; not to take too much notice of history. Yet how easily we are taken in on both counts, how reluctant we are to swim against the tide of innovation, to learn from our history, to stand up against peer pressure – even when in our heart of hearts and in those fleeting moments when we actually take time to listen to the Holy Spirit as he shows us the difference between the world’s way and God’s way, we just know it’s not right, it’s not healthy, it’s not Christian.
So John here reminds us that because of Jesus God looks upon Christians and calls them his children.
V1 ‘and that is what we are’, he adds. Why? Because we know him. In our hearts and in our minds by faith in Jesus and by the grace of God we know him. John contrasts this ‘knowing’, the knowing that comes not just from facts about God but from the experience of him in our lives, with the lack of such knowledge in those whose god is either the world or themselves. The actual experience of God we have may be as quiet, as gentle, as unspectacular as simply the conviction in our hearts and in our heads that what Jesus has taught is true; that what he has promised is gradually becoming true in our lives; that when we trust and obey, his way works – even though it cost us in terms of our losing out financially perhaps or socially. The experience may be more startling – perhaps finding his healing in our lives, a new desire and ability to love our neighbour as ourselves, a new boldness to actually open our mouths in public and not just in church about our Christian faith or, better still, this Jesus who is a living reality in our lives and not just an intellectual conviction or a warm, cosy feeling when life is going well; absent when it’s not!
In v 2, John is speaking about Jesus’ Second Coming, and says that although he doesn’t know what life will be like then exactly, he does know that it will be very special because we shall be like Jesus. He seems to be saying here that the very sight of Jesus will bring out what is of him in us. This thought leads John on in v3 to say that if the Christian truly loves Jesus then he or she will want to ‘purify themselves’. Well quite simply the only way we can do that is by becoming more like him, by turning from sin and the world’s principles and temptations, to determining, through love for Jesus, to follow him more faithfully and effectively: trust and obedience leads to purity.
Now the next few verses are a little complex and at first sight read like a counsel of impossible perfection. But don’t get despondent just yet! We have to remember that John here is teaching against the false teachers’ teaching, some of whom were arguing that sin doesn’t matter; the idea – still around today - that ‘God loves you, so do what you like.’ Some of John’s opponents, it appears, thought themselves either sinless or were somehow excused their sinning by virtue of their sophisticated ideas about God. Well, John reminds them that to sin is to break God’s law of love, and that the whole purpose of Jesus’ (v5 and 8) coming into the world was to deal with the world’s sinfulness – including yours and mine. ‘And let no one deceive you’ (v7) because God is holy and just, and because this was the purpose of Jesus’ coming - to deal with sin and reconcile us to God that we become thereby (v1) his children.
Now I hope some of you are already asking yourselves why I have missed out the tricky verse 6. Well I want us to consider it along with verse 9 because these two verses are crucial for understanding the points John is making about Christians and sin. It is actually very complex indeed and has puzzled far greater minds than mine. Is he suggesting that true Christians cannot sin? I don’t think so; that would be unrealistic and actually contrary to the teaching of Jesus about human nature. No, what he is saying here is that sin and fellowship with God are incompatible. The key word here in v6 & v9 is ‘abide’.
We all know that it is wrong to sin, whether by doing wrong or by failing to do good, which is why we must constantly seek God’s forgiveness of our sins to repair what we have broken. But none of us is perfect, so how do we avoid ‘lawlessness’ v4 and become ‘righteous’ v7?
The secret lies in ‘abiding’ in Jesus, that is in developing such a close relationship with him that not only do we not want to sin but we scarcely have time to do so because we are too fully engaged in loving him and our neighbour as ourselves. As the saying goes, ‘The Devil makes work for idle hands.’ So it is not an exaggeration by John to say, v6, that no one who ‘abides’ in him sins. Our problem is that our love for him is often not what it ought to be: it is too easily diluted or undermined by love of the world or love of self; we fail to keep this wonderful relationship in good repair. You see what John is offering to us here, from his own personal experience of knowing Jesus, is a way to overcome the world, the flesh, and the Devil; which is to ‘abide’ in Jesus. And the best way for us to make this a very practical priority in our lives is to reflect more deeply and more often on God’s love for us – what he has done for us, what he has saved us from, and the blessings we enjoy from him. It is not then that we cannot sin but that ‘abiding’ in him is the recipe, the antidote not only to not sinning but to becoming a more effective disciple.
Verse 9 again is tricky and goes hand in hand with v6 to help us understand what John is saying about faithful and effective Christian living. It is quite simply this, and it is precisely what Jesus himself taught.
We all of us need to be born of God, to be born again, by welcoming his Holy Spirit into our lives. Unless this has happened, it will be impossible for us to ‘abide’ in Jesus. How do we know that we have been born again? Well, we find that God gives us a new nature, a new disposition that we know is different from how we once were. We experience a new love for Him and for neighbour that either wasn’t previously there or has undergone a huge and discernible shift. The new birth enables a new willingness to obey God, a willingness that is both genuine and emerges in actual activities of obedience – such as prayer, bible-study, and service. The first mark of new birth is heart-gripping faith in Jesus as the Son of God. New birth leads away from sinfulness. It is not that it is impossible for the Christian to sin but it is against his or her new disposition, against the new direction and the new priorities the Holy Spirit gives in new birth; sinning is against the flow of the way God has remade and renewed us in the new birth.
It is perfectly possible of course to forget that we have been born again of God – because we have not kept the relationship in good repair or because we have been tempted away by the world or by the specious arguments of false teachers or of the spiritually blind. And as a consequence, we lose or never really discover the love of God that is given at the new birth and which grows and flourishes, convinces, enables, and assures as we ‘abide’ in him.
Finally, v10, authentic Christian love and living, ‘abiding’, the ‘new birth’ is discernible both in ourselves and by others. It is something that breaks the power of sin, something that distinguishes those who truly love God from those who do not. Supremely it shows in a Christian’s love for his or her neighbour in service and in an ever deepening desire to tell others about Jesus.
STUDY QUESTIONS
1. What does it mean to ‘abide’ in Jesus? How is this an antidote to sinning?
2. Why does Jesus insist that it is necessary to be ‘born again’ in order to ‘see the Kingdom of God’? How does John’s teaching depend on this?
3. Why do Jesus and John confine the term ‘children of God’ to Christians? Why do you think they consider it such an exclusive term? What makes it inclusive?
4. Why and how should our ‘purifying’ of ourselves begin with Jesus?
5. What does the incompatibility of sin and fellowship with God tell us about his nature and character?
6. How easily and in what ways can we be deceived by false teaching and by the attractions, values, and priorities of ‘the world’?
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