Introduction
Living in a fallen world, as we do, we are not only confronted by, but are often in the company of people who claim to love God, claim to be followers of Jesus, but in fact, are not.
This is nothing new; it was certainly the case in the early church and particularly in the churches to whom John was writing this letter. It is for this reason that John went to great lengths to speak to this issue of how we can know that we know God.
Remember, John was writing to help these early Christians confront the Gnostics, that group of heretics in the first few centuries of the church, which claimed that knowing God meant possessing some mystical, secret knowledge. Thursday's (March 16th, 2006) edition of the USA Today, carried several articles about the popularity of the DaVinci Code. One article noted how the DaVinci Code has boosted sales of a number of other books which promise to reveal long guarded secrets which supposedly expose the truth of Christianity's roots. Like those who fell prey to the Gnostics in the first few centuries of the church, many people today are still looking for some secret knowledge. Even as Satan tempted Adam and Eve by promising them secret knowledge by eating from the fruit of the tree, many people today are being lured away from the truth of God's revelation with promises of secret knowledge, knowledge that will somehow make them more like or closer to God.
But much to the contrary, John says true Christianity is not so much what you know, as it is Who you know. True Christianity is not evidenced by a full head, but rather by a changed heart. And how do we know that we know Him? Well, says John, it will invariably be evident in the way we live our lives. Contrary to what the Gnostics were teaching, and to what many people teach today, knowledge of God is not merely head knowledge, but it is heart knowledge. It is not only what we have read or been told, but by necessity also involves a personal experience, a relationship with God; a relationship which manifests itself in practical ways in the life of the one who knows God.
In verses one through six of chapter two John has already made the point that one of the ways we know we know Him is if we obey Him. And now, he follows that insight up with another one; We know that we know Him if we have His love.
Here in chapter 2, in verses 7-17, John talks to us about the necessity of God's love as evidence that we know Him. He tells us that if we love Him we will grow to be more like Him and that our love for Him must be undivided.
Notice three things with me this morning.
I. The priority of love
Love is one of those themes which goes throughout most of the writings of John. Whether it is in His gospel or here in the epistles love is a reoccurring theme.
In these five verses John draws our attention to three things, concerning love.
A. The origin of love - vs. 7
When he says he is not writing a new commandment, but an old one which we have had from the beginning, he is speaking about the origin of this commandment to love.
Beginning in the earliest books of the Old Testament, God's desire was that we would love Him and love others.
For Jews, this was part of their most basic confession of faith. Known as they Shema, they every devout Jew would repeat Deuteronomy 6:4-5 twice each day.
"Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."
In Leviticus 19:18, God instructed His people, " . . . love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord."
This commandment was not something new to them; it was as old as Judaism itself.
In fact, Jesus had repeated these very words. In Mark 12:28, when the scribes cam and argued with Him, and asked Him, what was the greatest commandment, Jesus said,
"Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these."
John is reiterating what they had known, from the beginning. Love God and love each other. This is foundational to what it means to know God.
But then in verse 8 he moves from the origins of love to the operation of love.
B. The operation of love
Notice that he says, "Yet I am writing a new command, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining."
John is, no doubt, referring to what Jesus Himself had said in John 13:34, where Jesus said, "I give you a new commandment; love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another."
You see, from the very beginning all those who would follow God had an obligation to love Him and others, but Jesus took it to a new level. His commandment did not have to do so much with the decision to love, that was the old commandment. The new commandment had to do with the depth of that love, or the kind of love we are to have for one another.
Jesus says, I want you to love each other like I have loved you. That's a tall order.
The New commandment to love is more of a commandment to be than to do. One cannot be coerced into loving someone else. Love emanates from who we are, who Christ has made us to be. Even as God is love, if we are filled with and controlled by His Spirit His love will manifest itself through us in all we say and do. That's why love is an undeniable mark of authentic Christianity.
The term "New Commandment" should not to be seen in the legalistic sense of something we have to do, whether we want to or not, but more in the sense of what God's will for His people is; look at it more in terms of what God requires of those who have surrendered their lives over to His control.
Again, it is more of a mandate as to what we are supposed to allow Christ to make us to be rather than something we just do. Remember, God is more concerned with what we are than with what we do because what we are always determines what we do.
As humans one of our weaknesses is that we always want to do something to gain God's favor. That's why we have come to equate busyness with godliness. The busier we are, the more God will love and appreciate all we do for Him. But folks, before we can do anything significant for God, we have to allow God to change us into the image of Christ. Then, when we are lacking nothing, when we are mature in the faith and we can love like He loved, then we are ready for Him to use us.
Transformation always comes before utilization. He wants to change us before He uses us. So this commandment to love as He loved begins with the understanding that He wants to change us into His likeness and then, as that process of change is taking place, He will express His love for others through us.
Over the years I've had people come to me and say, "Pastor, I just want to know God's will for my life." And by this they mean that they want some quest, some journey, some spectacular kind of sacrificial task that they can perform for God that they think will cause Him to love them more. When in reality all of us, each and every day of our lives are presented with hundreds of opportunities to do the will of God. Every person we meet presents us with a unique opportunity to express the love of God. Every time we come across people who are difficult or who agitate us we have the opportunity to allow the love of Jesus to flow through us in a supernatural way. And with each act of His love flowing through us, He changes us just a little bit more to be like Him.
John's idea of love is love in action. 1 John 3:18 says, ":ittle children, we must not love in word or speech, but in deed and truth:"
Jesus said in the Matthew 5:43-45 in the Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven."
When we are truly crucified with Christ, and it is no longer us that lives, but Christ Jesus is living through us, this love will inevitably flow from us to others.
Now, this is the operation of love, the transformation of our hearts and minds, into the image of Christ.
But then, John moves from the operation of love to the opposite of love. Look at verses 9-11.
C. The opposite of love - vs. 9-11
The opposite of love is hatred. Thus, John says, one of the ways you know that you know Him is that you love Him and you love each other. Conversely, one of the ways you know that you don't know Him is that you hate your brother. Hate, here, in the original language is not so much an outburst of anger as it is an attitude with which we have grown comfortable.
When we think of hatred, we think of active animosity felt or expressed towards others. But that's not exactly what John is saying. John is contrasting true love with hatred. True love, Christian love, the kind of love God has for us, the kind of love Jesus expressed on the cross, is sacrificial and active. It is proactive, not merely reactive.
Even as peace is not only the absence of strife but also the presence of harmony and good will, so hatred is not only defined by the presence of animosity, but by the absence of love. There is no room for neutrality, we either love others or we hate them, we cannot, according to John, ignore them and at the same time say we love them .
After all, how can we say we love others as Jesus loves them, and then sit idly by and watch them go to hell? How can we, being the stewards of the gospel, say that we love others and yet be content never to share God's love with others?
You see, for John, love is proactive, it takes the initiative. Even as God commended His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; so we must take the initiative and love others as He loves us.
Those who love as Jesus loved, are walking in the light, as He is in the light. And, says verse, if we are walking in the light we will not stumble. The implication is that those who walk in the light can see clearly. They are having fellowship with God and with God's people. The one who claims to walk in the light, and yet is apathetic towards others, or who possesses no love for others, is not walking in the light but is blinded by the darkness in which he walks.
For the Christian love is not optional, it is a priority, a priority which is to be put into practice.
But secondly, notice verses 12-14 . . . where John deals with the process of maturity.
II. The process of maturity - vv. 12-14
In these three verses, John gives us two sets of three parallel statements. He addresses three different groups of people in the church.
a) The children - those who are young in the faith
b) The Fathers - those who have been believers a long time
c) The Young Men - those who presently carry the responsibility for the furtherance of the gospel.
Notice that with each of these stages of spiritual maturity, with each group of people, there are specific things John relates.
To the children, to those who are early in their pilgrimage as believers, he very simply states that they know their sins are forgiven and that they know the Father.
Two difficulties young Christians often face are the question of whether or not Jesus can really forgive their sins, and whether or not their religious experience was the real thing. John addresses both of these questions in these three verses. He tells them that their sins are forgiven, not on the basis of their own works, but rather for His name's sake, making reference back to Jesus as the propitiation for our sins. And he assures them that having had their sins forgiven, they know the Father.
To the fathers, he points back to that which they have known from the beginning. He wants to remind the rest of the church that there are those who have faithfully walked with Jesus for a long time. One of the beautiful things about our church is the diversity in age among our members. Our staff was telling me that we are having record numbers of preschoolers in the nursery, and at the same time we have one of the strongest Sr. Adult ministries I have ever seen. While many of our Senior adults may not realize it, their very presence is an inspiration and encouragement to many of our younger members. To know that you have faithfully walked with God all these years, to see the living testimony of your witness gives many younger members confidence that all God says is true. You are living testimonies to God's faithfulness.
And then he writes to the young men, to the leaders in the church who we might refer to as the core group of leadership. These are the folks who do much of what gets done.
He says, I am writing you because you have overcome the evil on and because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one.
It is clear, by what John says to these young men, that they were on the front lines of the spiritual battle which was taking place in their day. God had made them strong and they had overcome the evil one. The word of God was abiding in them and they were winning the war for Christ.
In every healthy church there should be all three groups of these folks. Those who have just come to know Christ, those who are in their prime and are fighting the good fight, and those who have carried the torch faithfully for many years and whose lives serve as an example to others.
I've often heard it said that Christianity is only one generation away from extinction.
Not only should these different groups exist, but their should be a gradual process whereby the younger Christians are growing up in Christ and taking the place of those who have gone before them. This is the only way the church continues from generation to generation.
Then, moving from the process of maturity, John warns us about the perils of the world.
Look at verses 15-17
III. The perils of the world
Whereas we are told to love God and one another, here we are strongly warned against loving the world and the things of the world.
There are those who have asked, "Doesn't the bible say that God loves the world?" and yet here we are told not to love the world.
Again, context is the best friend of the interpreter. In John 3:16 where the scripture says that God so loved the world, contextually scripture is speaking about the people who comprise the population of the world. But here, contextually, when John uses the word, "World" he is talking about the material world in which we live, the spirit which is behind it and all of the things to which people become attached which vie for their allegiance.
We use the word "world" in similar ways. Speaking of people we might say something like, "The whole world was at the mall," and then we might say, "He is a man of the world." Contextually we realize two different things are meant.
When John warns us not to love the world nor the things of the world, he is speaking about the materialistic world in which we live. He is warning us against becoming attached to things which hold no eternal value.
In fact, he says that if we love the world the love of the Father is not in us. This is strong stuff. What is this love He is talking about?
It is a strong attachment to this world instead of the world to come. It is a desire for and leaning toward the temporal things of this world rather than the eternal things of heaven. This inordinate love for worldly things demonstrates the true nature of a person's heart.
John breaks down the love of the world into three categories.
A. The lust of the flesh
The cravings of sinful man. They are the desires that come from the human striving, desires which are shaped by the world and the spirit of the age, rather than by the Spirit of God living within us. These types of desires are manifest when we seek first the things of the world rather than seeking first the kingdom of God. (moral laxity, success at any price, material things ahead of spiritual things).
B. The lust of the eyes
The desire which comes from things we might see. Greed, materialism, envy, are strong desires which come from wanting what we see. The television screens and pages of magazines are filled with these type of allurements. They appeal to our carnal nature rather than to the new nature we have in Christ. One thinks of David, seeing Bathsheba and wanting her or Eve, seeing the forbidden fruit and desiring it. In all of our lives the enemy tries to tempt us with that which we see. That's why we must be careful what we set before our eyes.
C. The boastful pride of life
Or the pride of one's lifestyle - boasting about what one has done for themselves, about what they have made for themselves. This is the sin of self sufficiency, self reliance and pride. The NIV translates this as "material possessions," which is the root meaning here behind the boastful pride which causes one to fall into this sin. It is evidenced in a boastful self confidence that causes one to forget that all they have comes from God and belongs to God. It is an overconfidence that causes us to forget that we are dependent upon God.
There always have been and always will be those within the church whose loyalties are divided, whose hearts are not sold out to God.
Second Timothy 4:10 comes to mind where Paul says, "For Demas has deserted me, because he loved this present world and has gone . . . "
The one who walks in the light, the one who is growing in their spiritual maturity, the one who walks in the light and has fellowship with God and His people is not possessed by the love of the world. Rather, they are possessed by the love of God.
Rather than being preoccupied with the temporal things of this world, they have positioned themselves to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
After all, as Jesus asks in Matthew 16:26, "What will it benefit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?"
As one commentator asks, "Why should heirs of the eternal world concentrate their interests and ambitions on such a transient order? Why should they place all their eggs in such a perishable basked? Why does Christian practice so often fall short of Christian profession?"
Conclusion
Where is your love this morning? Do you love the world or do you love the Lord? What do you love? You don't have to answer me, in fact you don't even have to give an answer. The truth is that your life is already answering that question for you.
Do you love Jesus this morning, I mean really love Him enough to abandon everything else for Him? Do you love others as He loves you?
Where is your love? And if it's in the wrong place what are you willing to do about it?