Series: 1 John
Week: Five
Passage: 1 John 2:3-2:6
Title: 3 Basic Principles of Knowing God
Focus: Furthering Fellowship
1 John Chapter One in Review
• Week 1 - PURPOSE: 1 John is writing to oppose three popular ways of thinking in his culture and time of His writing. (1) Gnostics [the world is fundamentally evil but the Spirit is fundamentally good] (2) Docetism [taught that Jesus only appeared to have a body/new age thought] (3) Cerinthus [Gnostic heretic against creation and Jesus].
• Week 2 - FELLOWSHIP W/ GOD: (1) Fellowship in existence (2) Fellowship in Knowledge (3) Fellowship in love.
• Week 3 – PROBLEMS (Get Back Into Fellowship): (1) Get in the right light (2) Get Devoted (3) Get Restored.
• Week 4 – PROBLEMS (Repentance): (1) Recognize your own personal sin (2) Confess Sin (3)
TITLE: Basic Principles of Knowing God the Father (2:3-2:6)
INTRODUCTION: There is an old unethical selling technique still used today called the bait-and-switch. In this selling scheme, a merchant lures customers into his store by advertising a well-known product at a very low price. When the buyer asks to purchase it he is told that it is out of stock. The salesperson then tries to sell him a low-grade line of merchandise, hoping to pocket a bigger profit. The brand name was used just to get potential customers to step inside.
In a similar way, much like those false teachers that John opposed used biblical words to capture interest and gain a hearing. False prophets and teachers may talk about Christ, redemption, the cross, and the resurrection, but these "trusted terms" amount to nothing more than a come-on. The "seller" (often disguised as pastors) use terminology to advertise truths that, as far as he is concerned, are "out of stock." When an interested person responds, he is confronted by beliefs that are completely contrary to God's Word.
John writes so that we would know the truth, have the access to the actual product and be able to use it in order to live a life that is truly enriching. His emphasis in chapter two is outlining how to know God. He writes (1 John 2:1-2:6),
“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”
TITLE: Basic principles of knowing God (2:3-2:6) (i.e. Why do we obey?)
Point #1: Know God the Father if You Keep His Commandments (1 John 2:3-4)
• Explanation: John writes that “we” (Christians – those who have come to know Christ through faith) can be SURE (having feelings of complete certainty with no hesitation) that we know him (Christ) if we obey his commands.
o Obey: John lays the importance of following the commands of God with complete compliance. His stress is not fully in the mind but more in the behavior of the Christian. The church should have complete compliance to God’s Word so that they would experience the fellowship previously discussed in chapter one.
o His: As often in John’s usage, the word “Him” might refer either to God or to Christ. For John, Jesus is so closely linked with the Father that a precise distinction between the Persons of the Godhead sometimes seems irrelevant. To know Jesus is to know God and to know God is to know Jesus.
o Commandments: The commandments are ultimately referring back to the ‘ten words’ written down by God by the divine voice from Sinai in the hearing of all Israel (Ex. 19:16–20:17). Afterwards, they were TWICE written by the finger of God on both sides of two tables of stone (Ex. 31:18; 32:15–16; 34:1, 28; Dt. 10:4). Moses shattered the first pair, symbolizing Israel’s breaking of the covenant by the sin of the golden calf (Ex. 32:19). The second pair were deposited in the ark (Ex. 25:16; 40:20). Later, Moses republished the Ten Commandments in slightly modified form (Dt. 5:6-21).
• The commands are as follows (Exodus 20:1-17):
• ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
• TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
• THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
• FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
• FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
• SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
• SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
• EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
• NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
• TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'
• Illustration: My parents outlined direction for me to follow so my life was easier if I followed their commands.
• Application: What John’s words mean to us today is that someone may profess a fellowship with God but the true test of a man’s knowledge of God resides in the life he lives. This has two applications for us today.
o If you claim to know God and do not keep His commands you are a liar. A man who knows God keeps his commands. John was not afraid to call a spade a spade.
o John even went a step further and said that the man who does not keep the commands of God is a man in which the “truth is not in him”. The idea is similar to the statements John already made in chapter 1:6, 8, and 10. In such a person the truth is not a dynamic, controlling influence. He is seriously out of touch with spiritual reality.
• Questions:
o Do you keep the commands of God?
Point #2: Know God the Father if You Keep His Word (1 John 2:5)
• Explanation: John continues to write that we can know God if we also keep God’s Word. Keeping the Word of God is not difficult but is more freeing for the Christian and builds the fellowship. How?
o Keeping God’s Commandments are not Burdensome:
• “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” 1 John 5:3
o Keeping God’s Commandments Allows God to make His home in us:
• “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:23
• Jesus answered that He and the Father will not manifest (make known) themselves to those who are disobedient to His teaching. Obedience grows out of love for Jesus and His Word and as a result, the Father and the Son abide (make Our home) with him.
o “Home” is translated “rooms” in John 14:2.
• BONUE NOTE: In verse five John also states that, “the love of GOD is perfected” in those who keep his Word. John’s expression is two-fold…
o GOD’s love for us is perfected: GOD’s love is made perfect when it fulfills it’s purpose by bringing us into right relationship with His son Jesus Christ. That was the whole intent of sending His son into the world – not to condemn us, but to save us (John 3:17)
o Our love for GOD is perfected – Our love is perfect only when we love as Christ first loved us. To keep His word/commandments is to love God first and allow that love to pour over our brothers and sisters (Matt 22:37-40)
• Illustration:
• Application: John’s comment is that when a Christian remains focused in keeping God’s Word he (or she) has the ability to see the love of God perfected. An obedient disciple is promised a special experience of the love of God. Since a Christian is already the object of God’s saving love (grace), this additional divine affection is said to make God’s love complete in the believer.
o 1 John 4:12 “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
o 1 John 4:17 “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.”
• An obedient believer has a deep acquaintance with “God’s love.” Since God is love, to know God intimately is to know His love intimately.
• Questions:
CONCLUSION: (1 John 2:6) John makes an exhortation that if you say that God abides in you (John used two other expressions “in Him” and “live in Him”) then we must walk in the ways that Jesus walked as our obedience imitates Christ.
This concept is best illustrated from the Parable of the Vine and the Branches (John 15:1-8). The vine-branch relationship is an image of the discipleship (Christian) experience. Jesus said, “This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples” (John 15:8). In 1 John 2:5-6 discipleship is an imitation of Christ. In other words, to know Christ is to imitate Christ and to imitate Christ is bear much fruit. To know God is to keeps His commands. To know God is to His Word. Jesus did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law thus building the gap between Old Testament and New Testament.
Therefore in 1 John, the proof that a person is enjoying this kind of experience is to be found in a life modeled after that of Jesus in obedience to His Word. Are we walking in obedience to His Word and to His commands? Are we in true fellowship with God?
