Things Worth Knowing
An Old Message Renewed
I John 2:3-11
There are several reasons the spirit of God has given us this little book. One of the reasons is in chapter 2:1 where he says, "Little children, I'm writing these things so that you will not sin." God has given us this Bible so we will understand how we can confess our sin and claim the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and win over sin.
I have struggled a little bit with what the primary reason God has in giving us this little book.
On the one hand, John is addressing the false teachers and their doctrines and how to recognize them and evaluate their teaching. Their beliefs were foreign to New Testament theology and John didn’t want this disciples misled. That is a very strong part of why he is writing.
I think that flip side to that is that while we can recognize what a false teacher looks like, we can also see what a genuine believer looks like. And as a result of that, we gain assurance in our own faith.
In fact, that too, appears to be perhaps the primary reason for the writing. I direct your attention to the 5th chapter and 13th verses where it says, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life."
That's the main reason God gave us this book. That we might have a know-so salvation.
The Bible does teach a know-so salvation. Not a think-so, not a hope-so, not a maybe-so, but a know-so salvation. In fact, John goes a little further and says that it is a know-so salvation, not just a say- so salvation.
Notice three times in the verses we read he uses the little phrase, "he who says." In chapter one, three times he uses the little phrase, "If we say."
John is big on practice versus profession. John would agree with the words of the Lord Jesus when Jesus said, "not everyone who says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father in heaven." Jesus said it is not enough to say so; it has to be real.
John says, "Amen, Lord Jesus, it is not enough to just say you are saved; it has to be real. You need to have a know-so salvation.
A series of tests are given to us as we read through the chapters of this book which help us to know that we have this salvation. One of those tests we are going to consider in this message. It is the test of love.
John lays before us the wonderful truth that when love comes into your heart, it is an evidence that you are genuinely born again.
This is the theme of the verses we are studying. It is the theme of the love of God and the evidence of that love of God that we are genuinely born again.
Let's look at the love test and think about how love is-
I. PERFECTED.
Verse 5
What a beautiful thought. Later on in this little book John will specifically say that God is love. What a wonderful thing is the love of God. When you are saved the Bible says that God puts His love in your hearts.
When you receive Christ as your Savior, the Bible teaches in Romans 5, that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you and when God's Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you, the Bible says that the love of God is poured into your heart.
Notice Romans 5:5
What kind of love is this love of God? In the
Greek language there were several primary words for love.
There was the word, eros, which referred to sensual love. There was also the word, philos, which referred to social love.
But when you come to the New Testament and you read about the love of God, it's as if the Holy Spirit has given a brand new word. It is the Greek word, agape. It is so wonderful, so marvelous, this love of God, that the Holy Spirit gave us a brand new word.
When you are saved this agape love is poured out into your heart. What kind of love is that? Look at Romans 5:8, "But God commends His love toward us." That is, God shows His love. God demonstrates His love. God exhibits His love.
God proves His love, "in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." That's what the love of God is like. It is a love that caused him to send His Son, Jesus, even while we were yet sinners.
“Toothless Mae Laufelholtz” “Agafe” love, Just know God loves me!
Now he says the love of God is perfected in us. What does that mean?
It is brought to completion in us. It is brought to its purpose in us. When does the love of God arrive at its intended goal in our lives? In John 14:15 Jesus said this, "If you love me keep my commandments."
Do you know what perfects love? The ultimate purpose of love? It is obedience. God wants us to obey Him. Obedience is an evidence that the love of God is reaching maturity in our lives. It is an evidence that love is doing what it is intended to do.
Verse 3,
He says the negative in verse 4, where he says that you can say it, but if you don't keep his commandments you are a liar and the truth is not in you. John is very, very plain. John doesn't know any grays. It's black and white with the apostle John.
John says you can say you have love all you want to, but if there is no desire in your heart to keep the commandments of God, then you aren't telling the truth. The truth is not in you.
What does this mean - keep His commandments?
The word, keep, means to guard as a treasure. It means that earnest endeavor to do what God has to say. To obey the Lord. To obey the commandments of the Lord.
This is why Bible study is so important for a
Christian. When you read the Bible, you find the commands of the Lord. If you don't ever read the
Bible, you don't know what God wants you to do.
But as you read the Bible you begin to find the specific commands of God - the things that God wants you to do.
Some of them are positive - do these things. Some of them are negative - don't do these things. He is not suggesting that we have perfect obedience. He is not suggesting that we always perfectly keep the commands of God, but he is saying that an evidence that we have been truly born again is that there is that desire in our hearts to keep God's commandments. We want to do what God wants us to do.
You have your name on a church roll, you have been baptized in a baptistery but you really could care less what God wants you to do. In fact, you are pretty well committed to doing what you want to do and you aren't interested at all in doing what God wants you to do, then John says you have never been saved.
A desire to keep the commandments of God is an evidence that love is being perfected in our lives.
Look at the next thing in verse 5. "But whoso
keeps His word."
There's a little change now from verse 3. In verse 3 it says "we know we know Him if we keep His commandments."
Now in verse 5 he says, "whoso keeps His Word." He has moved from commandments to word. The Lord Jesus did the same thing.
Turn back to John 14. The Lord Jesus said in verse 15, "if you love me, keep my commandments."
In verse 23 Jesus said, "If a man love me, he will keep my words." Jesus made the same change.
What's the difference between desiring to keep His commandments and desiring to keep His words?
Let me give you an illustration from daily life that goes on all the time in your families. Happens almost every day. Here is a mother who is getting the family ready and getting them out. Breakfast is being served. She's getting the kids ready for the day.
She says to Bill, "Bill, take out the garbage, please."
That is not a suggestion, that is a command. Bill obeys his mom and takes out the garbage. She says, "Sue, make up the bed, please." That's not a suggestion, Sue, that's a command. Then, at the end of the day, mom comes in and the kids all come in from school.
Mom, just in passing, talking to no one in particular, says, "I'm so tired, had such a long day today, I wish somebody would wash these dishes for me."
Not saying it to anybody in particular, but she just makes that statement. Sue picks up on it. She goes in there while mom is working in another area of the house, and washes all of the supper dishes and puts them up.
Mom comes in and says, "My goodness alive! Who has washed all of these dishes?" Sue said, "I did, Mom." Mom says, "Sue, how sweet of you. I didn't tell you to do that." Sue says, "Mom, I know you didn't tell me to do it but I heard you say you were real tired and you wished somebody would wash the dishes. I love you and I wanted to do something that would make you happy."
That morning they heard the commandments: do this and do that. That night they heard a wish, a desire.
Love will not only want to obey the commands, love will also want to carry out the wishes of one we love.
That is exactly the way it is in the Christian life.
Jesus said one time, "I do always those things that please him." The Lord Jesus Christ was always anxious to please the heavenly Father. When you and I grow in our love, when love is perfected in our lives, then you and I will want to do not only the commandments of the Lord, but we will also want to do the very desires of the Lord. Just the things we find that please him. Just the things we find that demonstrate our love to Him.
One of the ways we know we are saved is that love is perfected in our lives.
There is a second evidence here in the love test.
How love is -
II. PRACTICED.
Verse 6 is an interesting verse. You could spend a long time meditating on this verse.
It says, "He who says he abides in him..." You have an additional word here. Back in verse 3 it says we know we know Him. At the end of verse 5 it says, hereby we know that we are in him.
Now in verse 6 he adds a word, he who says he abides in him. Look at the difference.
We are in him - that's salvation.
Abide in him - that's fellowship.
When you are saved you are now in Him. In the family. Not only are you in Him - salvation, the Bible says you are to abide in Him - that's daily fellowship with the Lord.
Now it says, "he who says he abides with Him."
That is you are walking with the Lord, you are living for the Lord, you are growing in the Lord. The Bible says if you say you abide in Him, (the Lord Jesus) you ought to walk also even as He (the Lord Jesus) walked.
John is high on practice. John is high on this business that it's not enough to just talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. Don't you think that's what we ought to do? It's not enough to just say it, John says, you need to put it into practice. You need to live it on a daily basis.
Many years ago I heard about an evangelist, in the days when these kinds of things went on, who would be in revival meetings and people would get happy and they would start shouting.
This evangelist had what he called his shouting committee. When people shouted he would have his shouting committee to check them out and see what kind of life they were living and see if their lives were consistent with their shout.
If their lives weren't consistent he would have his committee to go to them and say, "Now, you can't shout in the meeting until your lifestyle is consistent with what you are doing."
I wonder how it would be if we had some shouting committees. I wonder how it would be if we had some amen committees. You couldn't amen unless your life is consistent.
Practice love. A desire to follow Jesus. "Walk even as He walked." The statement, as He walked, is not talking about some specific activity of Jesus. It's not talking about that day that Jesus walked on the water. The verb here indicates the sum total of the life of Jesus.
To young people: Live like Jesus did when He was a boy. The Bible says He was submissive to His parents.
Live like Jesus did when He was a man, adults, the Bible says He went everywhere doing good.
Then I think about the way the Lord Jesus walked as the Savior when He set His face toward Jerusalem and walked all the way up Calvary's hill to die on the cross for our sins. The Bible says we ought to walk even as He walked.
OUGHT TO. That's moral obligation. Love is put into practice. We are to walk as He walked. That is, we are to live a life of love every day just like Jesus did.
Are you walking in the steps of Jesus? The Bible tells us we are to imitate the Lord Jesus. I Peter 2:21 says, "For even hereunto It's the word, mimic. Imitators. Be ye mimics of God. Be ye imitators of God, followers of God as dear children.
The Bible says we have a Savior who has already walked this way. We have a Savior who has already lived a life of love. The good new is sometimes though earthly fathers and earthly mothers may let you down and disappoint you and lead you in the wrong way, but when you follow Jesus He'll never, ever lead you astray. He'll lead you in a walk of love like you've never known.
Follow in His steps. That would change your lifestyle, wouldn't it? Love is practiced as we follow the example of our Lord Jesus.
Let's move on. Here's a third thing. It gets interesting. We see in the love test how love is-
III. PRESENTED.
John presents this love of God, this commandment to love, in a paradoxical way. In fact, he almost seems like he's contradicting himself.
Verse 7
He turns around in verse 8 and says, "Again a new commandment I write unto you."
One verse he says I'm not going to write you a new, I'm going to write you an old one. Then in the very next verse he says, I'm going to give you a new one. What are you talking about, John?
John is talking about the commandment to love.
Notice also in verse 7 that the word, commandment, becomes singular, whereas in verse 3 it was plural.
"keep his commandments." Plural.
Now in verse 7, "no new commandment." Singular. What is the singular commandment? We know that in the Old Testament there are ten primary commandments. When you examine these ten commandments you will find that they were on two tablets of stone. They divide into two general
categories.
The first of these commandments mean our duties to God. The remainder of those commandments mean our duties to our fellowman.
A man came to Jesus and asked Him what the great commandment was. Jesus said, "the great commandment is this - love God with everything you've got." He said the second one is like unto this, "love your neighbor as yourself." The whole commandments can be summarized in two - love God, love your fellowman.
Paul comes along in Romans 13:8 and says about the commandments. Jesus has taken the ten and distilled them into two - love God, love your neighbor.
Now, Paul says in verse 8, "Owe no man anything but to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law."
Then in verse 9 he begins to give some of the ten commandments. In verse 10 he says, "Love works no ill to his neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law." He has now distilled all of those ten commandments into one little four-letter word --LOVE. The great commandment is LOVE.
John says "I'm not going to give you a new one -
I'm going to give you an old one. God is love. God was here before the universe was brought into existence. This commandment to love is as old as the universe because it is as old as God. The old commandment, the main commandment is love.
It is old in its existence - been around a long time." But John says in verse 8 - "but by the way, it really is new. It is now new in expression." He is saying that we have had a new revelation of what love is all about. We've seen love like we've never seen it before.
He says in verse 8 - "again a new commandment I write unto you which thing is true in Him." He is saying that this love is presented in Jesus. It is true in Him. The commandment to love is new in the sense that when Jesus came and started loving He gave a demonstration of Love like this old world never saw. This old world never saw love like it saw when Jesus walked on this earth.
I enjoy sports. I enjoy basketball. The way basketball is played today is high skill, high energy, high speed. Quite different from earlier years.
My mother was an exceptional basketball player when she was in high school. When she played, half-court, dribble one time. For guys, after every goal was scored they came back to center and jumped for the ball.
Basketball has changed along through the years. A few years ago there was a player who absolutely revolutionized basketball.
He played his college ball at LSU. His name was Pete Maravich. He did things with a basketball that folks, until that time, didn't know you could do. He was the first player to ever dribble behind his back, and to dribble behind his legs, and to make passes people said you couldn't make.
I have seen many games when he would make passes behind his head and hit other players in the head. They didn't even know he was coming. He's the guy who got the three point shot started. He started shooting from out at a distance they didn't know you could shoot from. Pete Maravich changed the game of basketball.
Russell, invented the dunk, these guys absolutely changed forever the way the game of basketball is and will be played.
It became a brand new game when they played it.
Love has been around a long, long time. But love was a brand new game when Jesus demonstrated it. This old world never saw such love. It's true in Him.
Jesus showed us what love is all about. If you want to know how to love people, just read the Bible and read what Jesus did and how Jesus treated people.
O, how He loved people! O, how He loved His disciples! Have you ever seen such a motley crew as those disciples? Who would have picked a one of them if we had been picking them today? They acted so ugly at times. They were so self-righteous and so self-centered at times. Yet, Jesus just loved those old boys.
O, how Jesus loved sinners. They could come into the presence of Jesus and never feel uncomfortable or ill at ease. He just loved sinners. He loved His friends and He loved His foes and He just kept on loving and kept on loving and finally He went all the way to the cross and gave his all on the cross. It's true in Him. It's a brand new day, this love of God, because of what Jesus did.
Verse 8 - it's not only true in Him, it's true in you.
This love of God is new in you. Thought it's been around here since the beginning of the world, this love is new in you - brand new. The Lord has been saving people and the love of God has been coming in the hearts of people for over 2,000 years.
But when it come into your heart, it's brand new to you. When the love of God comes into your heart and you have never experienced it before, it's brand new to you. It's like the sun coming up every morning. Sun has been coming up as long as this old universe has been in existence, but in the morning when it comes up and you walk out and you feel the warmth of it - it's new to you.
It's new in emphasis. It changes your whole emphasis in life. It's wonderful to live on the basis of love and not on the basis of law. Obedience is loving God and we love God when we obey God and we prove our love to God by our obedience and our obedience is motivated by love. That's a lot better way to live than to be motivated by law.
Let me illustrate. There's a law which says you have to take care of your kids. In the morning you'll get up. Be a work day. Wake up groggy, wondering what world you are in. You look at the clock and say, o, man, we're five minutes late and you say to your wife, "Hurry up and feed the kids. If we don't
the cops are going to be over here and arrest us."
Is that what you are going to do in the morning? There is a law that says if you don't support your kids, they can come arrest you. But in the morning are you going to get up and take care of your kids because you are afraid of the law that says you have to? No. The reason you get up and take care of them is because you love them. That changes life altogether when you do what you do because of love. Not out of obligation, not out of duty. He says love just changes everything.
He gives a contrast here between love and hate.
He says in verse 9 and 10. He talks about love and hate - light and darkness. When you come to know the Lord as your Savior, that's the only thing that can take that hate out of your heart.
You do not have the luxury to hate anyone if you are a born again, child of God. You can't hate anybody because of face, place or race. You have to love them. If you don't have love in your heart, then the Bible says you don't have Jesus in your heart.
Hate puts you in the dark. Hate shrivels the soul like a flower that never gets any sun. Hate blinds like those pit ponies down in the coal mines. They live so much in the darkness it blinds them. Like those fish in subterranean streams that never see and it blinds them. Hate blinds people. It makes them have bad judgment. It makes them make wrong decisions. It fills them with bitterness. It fills them with hate.
When love comes in your heart, you are walking in the light. The Bible says you don't cause anybody to stumble. You don't trip folks up if you are walking in love.
Unless you are willing to let the love of God come in your heart and change that old hate heart to a heart of love you will never be born again. You have to let the love come in. That's the only way to get rid of the hate. You get rid of the darkness when you turn on the light. You can get rid of the hate when the love is turned on in your heart.
The Moody Tabernacle in Chicago is one of the historic churches of America. It was started by the evangelist, D. L. Moody. He was quite an innovator.
He did a lot of innovative things to reach people for the Lord. In those days gas lights had just started being used. In front of his pulpit he had put up in gas lights the little verse, "God is love."
Anybody who came in that building would see that verse. One night a poor, lost man; heart filled with sin and bitterness and hate, came in. At the end of the service he came forward to receive Christ as his
Savior.
After it was all over D. L. Moody asked him, "Sir, what was it about my sermon that brought you to Christ tonight?" He said, "It was a good sermon, but it wasn't that." Moody said, "What song was sung that brought you to Christ?" The man said, "The music was good, but it wasn't that." D. L. Moody said, "Sir, what was it that brought you to Christ?"
He pointed to that gas light in the front of the pulpit and said, "Preacher, it was that - God is love. I just began to realize that even though I was a sinner and my heart was filled with hate, God loves me. When I gave my heart to Christ, love came in and hate went out."
Do you know this love of God? You can walk out of this place knowing in your heart that you have the love of God. It will be the greatest experience you will ever have.
