Text: 1 John 3:4-18, Title: Free Demo Faith, Date/Place: NRBC, 6/15/08, AM
A. Opening illustration: Talk about downloading the free demon of a game on the computer, explain how it works to get you interested, but stops before you get any real satisfaction; So that you will pay up and buy the game. Like it to South Georgia Joe (ill file) and his free demo faith, “Throughout its history the true church has always maintained that Scripture clearly sets forth certain basic standards of belief and behavior as necessary marks of genuine saving faith. An affirmation and acceptance of the biblical gospel, and a life that is characterized by a worthy walk have rightly been seen as accurate indicators of the work of the Trinity on a person’s heart. And when such fruit is absent in an individuals life, the church has appropriately called into question his or her profession of faith.”--JM
B. Background to passage: The book of 1 John is written to a congregation that is in the middle of a split. Part of the split is a power struggle, but the more serious reason is heresy. The ones that left John’s Ephesian congregation were teaching falsehood about the person of Jesus, that was leading people to sin and damnation. Therefore John wrote the book, not only to help the true church survive, but to help all the congregation know the truth and discern if they are really “in the truth.” Twenty-six times in his letter does John give discerning truth about whether or not one is truly in the faith. And our passage today deals with the differences between genuine children of God (believers) and children of Satan (non-believers). Our first point in our mission statement here at NRBC is that we exalt Christ and change Tifton by demonstrating authentic faith. After the opening ill, explain how we have a long way to go in getting our town and culture to see the genuine, life-altering, transforming, new creature faith because of our casual churchianity here. One of my prayers is that God will raise up people who will take these things on as a personal ministry to the church to partner with me to bring about the fruitfulness of these mission points. It’s Father’s Day!
C. Main thought: in the text we will see the top two ways the NT says that we will demonstrate genuine belief
A. Authentic Faith Practices Righteousness (v. 4-10)
1. Explain verse six and the present tense (habitual nature) of sin, and the perfect tense of “known” and “seen.” Explain righteousness, both senses. Explain which sense is referring to which word in the text. Speak to the deception that John warns them from falling prey to which is the opposite of what John teaches: You can be righteous and not practice righteousness. Answer the question “why” one can’t sin if he has been truly born of God—desire, hatred of sin, new nature. Thus conclusively John can argue that what clarifies, makes manifest, demonstrates, verifies, and proves the legitimacy of one’s profession of Lordship is their life.
2. Jam 2:14-19, Matt 21:28-32, 2 Cor 5:17, 7:11, Rom 6:17-18, Col 3:5-7; Tit 3:3-6; 1 Pet 4:2-3, 1 Cor 6:11
3. Illustration: Boys (lads), let no one deceive and lead you astray. He who practices righteousness [who is upright, conforming to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action, living a consistently conscientious life] is righteous, even as He is righteous. –Amplified Version, reading an otherwise good commentary on this text, and how he spent very little time on the heart of the text, telling Martine after discussing someone who she was witnessing to that claimed to be saved, although no fruit nor evidence was in her life, and I told her that I am going to develop an evangelism plan to use with people that are convinced they are OK, but obviously they are not, Live it Live it..
4. If you are really saved, you can’t be comfortable with sin. There must be a new relationship to sin if you say that there is a new relationship to Christ. Reminder this is not to say that Christians never sin, nor that they cannot be trapped in addictive behaviors. This has more to do with their desire. To willfully, blatantly, unconvictedly participate in sin should make us question the reality of our faith, cause John says you are a liar, James says your faith is dead and similar to Satan’s, Jesus would say depart from me, Paul would say you have never been a new creature. Maybe the lights will come on today, and some of you may realize that you have been deceived. Believe, trust, repent, surrender, sell out, and warn others to do the same. My prayer is that when people give you the excuse about people in churches being hypocrites, you can honestly and proudly say, “not at my church.” Let’s destroy hypocrisy in our midst, and be the church. In fact, I hope that people all over our county and region, and state will exalt the name of Christ because of the lives that we live, because of the desires in our heart to live for Christ, and because of the willingness to sacrifice everything for Him. Reminder, this is not a change your behavior, attitude, speech, thought message. This is a be genuinely born-again, and God will change those things, and demonstrate to a world that so desperately needs to see something real. This is a get really saved and God will help you hate your temper, hate internet pornography, hate gossip, hate selfishness, hate skipping church, hate robbing God of his tithe, hate being harsh to your wives, hate grudges, hate your filthy language, hate racism, hate your cigarettes and dip, and maybe even your own life also, all because Jesus looks so lovely, and you so want to please him.
B. Authentic Faith Loves the Brethren (v. 10-18)
1. Really John is only reiterating two truths that he has already taught. First that genuine faith practices righteousness, and second that it loves other believers. That’s right, we should have a deep, abiding, biblical love for others. It is interesting that John includes this with practicing righteousness as a mark of genuine faith. Jesus said that it would demonstrate authentic faith in John 13:35. Define biblical love—read 1 Cor 13:1-8a. Look a few verses down and you will see the same truth again in verse 14-16. And we are even told in this text what love looks like—laying down your life, your agenda, your personal feelings, your anger, your pain, your goals, your pride for others in the church.
2. Many times in scripture we are commanded to “love one another” 1 Thess 4:9, “pursue love” 1 Cor 14:1, “put on love” Col 3:14, “increase and abound in love” Phil 1:9, “to be fervent” in love 1 Pet 4:8, “to stimulate one another to love” Heb 10:24, “walk in love” Eph 5:2, and finally “to do everything you do in love” 1 Cor 16:14
3. Illustration: “It is much easier to be orthodox…or to be active in ministry in a church, than to show love… Love considers nothing its right, and everything its obligation” John MacArthur. “Christians need to be given the painful reminder that frequent displays of temper betray the absence or at least the severe limitation of love.” Paige Patterson, Cartoon of wife to marriage counselor, regarding husband: “And then, do you know what he did on our honeymoon, just 21 years ago?” “My husband and I have managed to be happy together for 20 years. I guess this is because we’re both in love with the same man.” “Do not waste your time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.” -C. S. Lewis
4. We tend to think of love for others in the church as being a good suggestion or the ideal, but not really necessary. And we have come to be comfortable with its absence within our ranks. How do I know? Splits are commonplace, grudges and feuds are ongoing in our church right now (and nobody has the guts to confront those families or individuals), church members have developed lots of ways to demonstrate that they are mad or dissatisfied with things. Without love for other believers, you are may be indicating your lack of genuine faith, with it you may become everything God wants you to be for His glory. Love is patience. Love is kindness. Love shows its first concern is for others. Love thinks correctly of itself. Love speaks softly to build up. Love shows its last concern for its own interests. Love defers anger. Love thinks the best and keeps no records of the worst. Love delights in truth and refuses to acknowledge any value of sin. Love sustains others and itself during trials in the present. And love trusts in the future graces of God Almighty to bring about the best in all things. True agape love never fails, but brings glory and praise to the Lord both now and forever! And to consistently not show it in the church verges on blasphemy, destroys our witness, and may indicate that we are not truly saved.
A. Closing illustration: I like the story about 3 prospectors who found a rich vein of gold in California during the gold rush days. They realized what a great discovery they had, & decided, "We’ve a really good thing going here as long as no one else finds out about it." So they each took a vow to keep it secret. Then they headed for town to file their claims & get the equipment necessary to mine the gold. True to their vows, they didn’t say a word to anybody. They filed their claim, bought the equipment, & headed back to their mine. But when they did, a crowd of people followed them. And the reason was because the expression on their faces had given them away. Their faces were aglow in anticipation of the wealth that soon would be theirs. People knew that they must have found something very special. So a crowd followed them out of town. In the late Seventeenth Century in… southern France, a girl named Marie Durant was brought before the authorities, charged with the Huguenot heresy. She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable. She was asked to abjure the Huguenot faith. She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even to change the day-to-day quality of her behavior. She was only asked to say, “J’abjure.” No more, no less. She did not comply. Together with thirty other Huguenot women she was put into a tower by the sea…. For thirty-eight years she continued…. And instead of the hated word J’abjure she, together with her fellow martyrs, scratched on the wall of the prison tower the single word Resistez, resist!
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
