As those of you have been here on the last few Sundays will know, we have been looking at one of the ‘letters’ preserved in the New Testament which was written to one of the very first early churches by the Apostle John, the intimate friend and disciple of Jesus, sometime towards the end of the first century. If you missed Joe’s excellent talk last week, you can get it on the website, or I have put some paper copies on the font by the main door. The text of today’s reading is there on your Notice Sheet so that you can refer to it.
Our reason for studying these letters to those infant churches is that as soon as we start to read them, we discover that, although written nearly 2000 years ago and in a very different culture from the modern West, human nature and those human communities we call ‘churches’ have not changed much! And that is especially true of human beings’ fundamental need for love and truth. These, as we have already seen, are exactly what John majors on in this letter.
(Several people have remarked that John does repeat himself quite a lot in his letter. Well, in his defence, let me explain. First, it is a long letter and would have been read out to an assembled congregation - not everyone in those days could read and he would have wanted to make sure that his message got home. Secondly, he was by then an old man, so I have a lot sympathy for him: after all, they say that when you get old, three things quickly go: first, memory; then………???? Oh, well let’s move on.)
What I would like to do this morning, to begin with, is just to sum up the main points he is making and then consider their significance in a little more detail before you, as we do here in the Third Sunday Service, have a chance to ask me any questions about the passage or anything I have said.
John reinforces here the main point in his letter, reminding his readers and encouraging them to hold fast to the perfect revelation of both truth and love which are to be found in Jesus the Christ, God’s one and only Son. It is his truth and love which together provide the one, sure focus and standard by which ‘truth’ and ‘love’ are to be defined and judged. But because of what they are, they also attract hatred and lies in the form of opposition from both outside and inside the church. John states very clearly what genuine Christian truth and love are, how we know and recognise them, and gives examples of how to test them. Finally, he distinguishes between, on the one hand, worldly views and values, and, on the other, God’s truth and love, reminding his readers that they have nothing to fear because (4:4) ‘The One who is in you (the true Spirit of truth and love) is greater than the one who is in the world.’ The ‘world’ in this sense being ‘anyone who is opposed to Christ and his teaching’, as Christ himself put it.
What we do learn here from John – a man who faithfully and lovingly explains the person and teaching of Jesus – are some things which, just as much in today’s world as in his own, provoke controversy; but which Christians and local churches need to appreciate - and, I must add, not be afraid to stand up for - if Christians and Christ’s Church are to remain faithful to the personally and socially liberating truth and love of Christ which he called us to proclaim and share with all people regardless.
Now, as most of you know, I always try to avoid controversy and ruffling feathers, realising, as I do, that the average Anglican in the average congregation in the average village in England would much rather a quiet life in which his or her church offered comfort rather than challenge and the status quo rather than innovation. But the Good News of Jesus, his ‘Gospel’, does have this uncomfortable feature of challenging; challenging the beliefs and world views of individuals, the status quo, and those givens and taboos that the world deems sacrosanct. John raises some of those areas of controversy here because the local church and local Christians cannot be either faithful or effective if they will not take Jesus’ teaching seriously and practise his love and stand up for his truth.
I’d like to touch on just three that his letter raises here because they are crucial to a proper understanding of how we recognise or define who a Christian is – according to Christ’s definition, that is; how we recognise or define the opposition to Christ and to Christians; and then why Christians have every reason, indeed a sure hope, that if we remain faithful in both truth and love – love, the Jesus way - there is nothing in this world or the next to fear.
John begins this passage (v 11) by stressing the supreme and abiding requirement for ‘love of one another’, (citing Cain as an extreme example of failure in this) and a determination to set aside selfishness and sinfulness. Indeed, the kind of love he advocates has three very clear strains. You can see them there in verses 14 – 18.
First, Christians must be prepared not only to not hate but also to lay down their lives for others because that was the example set by Jesus himself. Secondly, we must not ‘refuse help (v 17) to the needy’; and thirdly, we should not be ‘astonished’ (v 13) if people hate us. The first two strains are perfectly obvious; but why the third? Well, because the fact is that such Christian love, whilst it has inspired people to become Christians, has also invited criticism and hatred. In John’s day the Christians were criticised by the rich and the powerful because, for example, they would go around collecting up the babies and children who had been thrown out to die and take them into their own homes and care for them. In the 19th Century it was Christians who stopped child labour, stopped the slave trade, educated the poor, etc, etc, all because (v 22) they ‘obeyed his commandments and did what pleases him’… and all that in the face of the world’s fierce opposition.
Today, Christians all over the world and increasingly here in our own country, seeking in love to right wrongs and fight injustices in accordance with Christ’s clear teaching, very often find themselves meeting fierce opposition, being told that the world knows better, and even facing persecution themselves as a direct result of their faithfulness to Christ. But for the Christian, truth must also and always accompany love; a trust in the truth and a firm desire to see it respected and implemented. As verse 23 says, truth and love go together. And what John expressly states is that the truth that inspires Christian love is the truth about Jesus Christ. Why? Because he it is and his teaching that not only inspire the love but also serve to define ‘love’ and how it should be exercised. Again we see the world today contesting this with alternative definitions of ‘love’ which, despite often very cunning attempts to hide the facts, do, all too often, lead to the most terrible of consequences especially, in my personal pastoral experience, where children and teenagers are concerned.
So, briefly, a Christian, according to John, is someone who believes that Jesus was exactly whom he claimed to be, the Son of God (v 23) come to present in person God’s perfect truth and love, who lived by that truth and love and then demonstrated them perfectly by voluntarily laying down his life to make it possible for humanity to be reconciled to God. And that voluntary ‘sacrifice’ of his was necessary because, like it or not, God’s justice is an integral part of his truth and his love which we cannot simply brush aside because it challenges our own much less than perfect ideas both about justice and about ourselves.
Well, secondly, what about the opposition, those whom Jesus referred to as ‘the world’, and by which he meant ‘those whose ideas about truth and love were opposed to God’s perfect revelation of them’? What I absolutely must make clear here though is this: Jesus did not mean that there were not and are not those who, although not confessing Christians, still live in keeping with and try to promote at least certain elements of God’s truth and love. Of course there are very decent, morally upright, and loving people who do these things because of the upbringing, education, and experiences they have had which lead them to live in this way, or because their consciences lead them this way.
That they refuse to admit or try to explain away the underlying, hidden, or innate Christian origin and influence of those things on their principles and attitudes is very sad and a symptom of the ‘blindness’ Jesus himself spoke of. And I have always thought this both sad and unfortunate because they could do so much more and with so much more joy if only they did welcome Christ and work with him: there is always a cost to the exercise of our free will when we use it either against or without regard to God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.
But John knew, and Jesus knew, and anyone with any discernment knows, that both beyond the church and, sadly, inside it there are those (4: verses 1 -3 and 5) who, for a myriad of personal reasons, either attack the love and the truth as shown and taught by Jesus or try to change it to suit their own very much less than perfect purposes. John wants Christians to be very clear and wise about the opposition, not to be taken in by it or tempted away by it, but rather (4: 1) to ‘test’ what they see and hear by the standards of Jesus’ perfect truth and love, the truth about him – that he was God himself come to earth to reconcile us – and the truth he taught and practised in the most perfect love.
Thirdly and lastly then, John explains the grounds on which Christians have nothing to fear; nothing to fear from God, from the world, or from the false prophets who would lead people astray. Quite simply it is this, (4 verse 4) that when a person puts his or her faith in Jesus Christ and his reconciling and redeeming love, they put themselves in God’s hands, God whom Jesus taught we can best understand, in human categories, as our heavenly ‘Father’. And whilst he does not promise, again in worldly terms, a ‘bed of roses’ – he desires a far more interesting and challenging, character-building life for us than that! – he does promise to be with us and in us every step of the way, and then to welcome us to our true home in the life to come – a promise and a hope proved beyond reasonable doubt by his resurrection, a resurrection which transformed John’s life and inspired him, in love, to share the ‘good news’ of Christ’s redeeming, reconciling, and liberating truth with all; ‘good news’ that we also have been commissioned to share
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