Are You In or Out?
Text: 1 John 2:18-21
OPEN WITH PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING
Listen, all of us can see what’s happening in the world around us, and when we go to Scripture, and we look into the Word of God, and we read through what Jesus and the Apostles say the world will be like before the return of the Lord, and we rightly discern the times, then there’s a good chance you’re thinking that Jesus is coming back soon… at least there should be.
And let me just say this right off the top – we don’t read our times into Scripture… we read and understand the Bible, and then we discern the times. We read and see what God’s Word says about the signs of the coming of the Lord, and what is to take place, and then we look at the world around us, and we can see that those things ARE taking place. But in reality, they’ve always been taking place. Lying, murder, immorality, deviance, unrighteousness, hate, envy, greed, wars and rumors of wars, plague, pestilence, famine… all of those things have been going on for thousands of years. They are the “Birth Pains”. And as birth pains tend to do, they have increased in frequency and intensity as time has gone on. And so, we can look at these “Spiritual Contractions” if you will, and say, “Yup, I think it’s going to be soon.”
But one thing we do see now, that we haven’t seen on such a large scale previously, is apostasy. That’s one of the things the Apostle Paul tells us about in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4. He says, “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us – to the effect that the Day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that Day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first… (that’s the apostasy – the falling away of those who claimed to follow Christ)… and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.”
And that is something we are seeing more and more of today, a falling away. People who would gather with the Church, and who claimed to know Jesus, turning away from Him, and falling in love with the world. This is exactly what John is writing about in this passage that we’re using as our text. In verse 3 (1 John 2:3) John says, “And by this we know that we have come to know Jesus, if we keep His commandments.” In verse 6 he says, “If we claim to abide in Christ, we should walk as He walked,”… in other words, live lives of increasing righteousness and holiness… Live in light, not in darkness. In verse 9 he says, “Whoever hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness.” In verse 15 he says, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
So John is writing all of this as a way of giving his readers a test to determine the genuineness of their faith, and he wants to do that because of what he says in our text (verses 18-21). Now if you’ve read through this chapter, you’ll notice something… John has repeatedly used a specific phrase over and over again… In verse 4 he says, “Whoever says, ‘I know Him’…”, in verse 9 he says, “Whoever says, ‘he’s in the light’…”. So he’s talking about people who SAY they are Christians. People who claim to know Jesus, and who claim to follow Jesus, and people who claim to be in the “light”. In other words, John is talking about people who profess Christ with their lips, but in reality, their hearts are far from Him. He’s not talking about genuine Christians; he’s not talking about people who have been truly born again – born from above. But about people who make a profession of faith, but actually lack saving faith. People who have been deceived, and who are deceiving themselves. This is why he says what he says in verse 19 – “They went out from us, but THEY WERE NOT OF US; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”
Let’s tie it all together.
A person can say all day, every day, that they are a Christian… they can say they follow Christ… they can say they are a believer, but if they’re not keeping His commandments… if they’re not walking as He walked… if they hate their brothers and sisters in Christ… and if they are in love with the world… John says, they are not believers. They can say whatever they want, but John says, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit… they are not in Christ.
Let’s take a quick look at each one of these metrics if you will. What are some of the Lord’s Commandments? To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself – Jesus said that covers the whole law. So do you love God? Is He supreme in your life? Is it your heart’s desire to be near Him in fellowship, and worship? Do you want to be closer and closer to Him? Which means further and further from the desires of your sin nature. What’s another commandment? How about this one… Do you share the Gospel with the lost? Jesus gave that command right before He ascended into heaven… “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel.” This is a very specific and clear command from the Lord. And people will sometimes say to me, “Pastor Ken, I don’t know how to do that… I don’t know how to share the Gospel.” So let me just give you a quick presentation of it. Sharing the Gospel goes something like this: You are a sinner. You have broken the Laws of God. You have rebelled against God. You have rejected His loving rule and reign over your life. And so you are going to be punished. You will die, and once you die, you will face judgment. And because you have sinned, and rebelled, and disobeyed an eternal, all mighty, perfectly holy God, the punishment you deserve is an eternity of wrath and pain, and suffering. It’s not unfair, it’s what you deserve… its what we all deserve. BUT GOD, in His mercy, and grace, and loving kindness, has sent Jesus into this world. And Jesus lived the life we should’ve lived. He never broke God’s Laws, He never rebelled against God, He never rejected God’s rule and reign and authority over His life and decisions. He was without sin, and God was satisfied with Jesus’ perfect obedience. God was well pleased because God could take the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and place it into the account of those who had previously sinned and rebelled against Him. But that was only part of what needed to be done. You see, even though God could now place the righteousness and perfect obedience of Jesus into our account, He still had to punish our sin. We truly have sinned, and because God is perfectly just – there has to be a punishment. And so Jesus, who had never sinned, then went to the cross, and was punished on the cross for our sins. He died, and the wrath of God was poured out on Him. All of God’s righteous anger at your sin, was poured out on Jesus. And so… Jesus died to pay for our sins… and He was buried, but three days later, He was raised up from the dead in order to show all of us that He had indeed paid the price, and that He had indeed met and fulfilled all the requirements of God the Father. And now God says that those who will believe in the Lord Jesus… those who will put their full faith, trust, and assurance in Him – will be saved. They will become a new creation in Christ Jesus. So God lays all of your sins on Jesus, and He lays all of Jesus’ righteousness and obedience on you. And when a person does that, God tells us that He will forvie them of all their sin, and that He will give them eternal life with Christ Jesus. THAT’S THE GOSPEL!
Have you shared that, or something similar to that with the lost people you know? Jesus commands us to do that.
What’s another commandment we could look at? How about “Do not neglect to meet with one another.” Do not forsake the assembling… that’s Hebrews 10:25. We are commanded to gather with one another as the Church. Do you know why that is? Because so many other commands are tied to that. We are to love one another, encourage one another, equip one another, hold each other accountable, pray for one another, build up and strengthen one another. It’s pretty hard to do that when you’re at home watching a preacher on Facebook live.
So test number one – Do you keep His commands? We might say that’s loving God…
Test number two – Do you walk as He walked? Do you help others? Do you encourage others? Do you bless others? Do you speak the truth to them, and show them kindness and mercy, and grace? Do you help people when you can? Do you call out sin when you see it?
Jesus did. You better believe He did! Do you strive towards personal holiness? Do you speak the truth in love? Do you walk as He walked? So this one… this one is loving one another. Remember, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”
Test number three – Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ? Remember we already looked at how we are to gather with one another. But do you love them? Why is that important? Because Jesus loves them. He calls the Church His Bride. He calls it His Body. Do you remember when Paul was converted on the Road to Damascus? He was called Saul then… but on the way to Damascus to persecute Christians, Saul of Tarsus has an encounter with the resurrected Christ, and Jesus said to him, “Why are you persecuting ME?” He didn’t say, “Why are you persecuting My followers.” Nope! He equated the Church with Himself. A person who refuses to love the Church, and gather with the Church is in effect saying, “I don’t want to gather with Christ. I don’t want to be around the Bride of Christ.” But remember that truth we see in Scripture about marriage… when a man and woman are joined in marriage, they become one. And I’ll just tell you – you can’t like me, and not like my wife. We are one. And you can’t claim to like Jesus but not His Church.
And I know that upsets some folks… they say, “Well there’s too many hypocrites in church… they’re just as big as sinners as the world.” Jesus knows that… He says, “Let the weeds grow with the wheat.” He knows who are His, and who belongs to the world. And I always tell people, “If a hypocrite is standing between you and God, the hypocrite is closer to God than you are. If he’s between you both, that makes him closer.” Christian – you don’t let the actions, words, and behaviors of people, whether they are going to church or not, affect your relationship with God. Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ… And test four is the flip side of that…
Test number four – Do you love the world? Does Jesus have your heart, or does the world? And when we talk about the world, we’re talking about things like wealth, fame, fortune, power, authority. Are you more concerned with the opinion of sinners or the opinion of Jesus? What things are distracting you from loving Jesus and serving Jesus? What things are taking your affections away from God? What things, or what people are leading you to sin? Think about it for a second… paus and reflect on it – if you can pinpoint something, or someone, or some activity, and it comes to your mind right now, and you say, “Yup that’s something that usually leads me into temptation and sin.” Why on earth are you hanging on to it? CUT IT OFF – GET RID OF IT!
Why? Look at our text.
“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.” Why? Because every single day we get one day closer to seeing Jesus! Whether that’s through death, or by His coming. Every day is one day closer! Look at what John says in verse 17, “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” This world, and everything that seems so attractive to us in it, are all going to burn. It’s all going to be destroyed… it’s passing away. But even if it lasts for another 200 years, or 2000 years, you won’t. Most of us will never see 100 years on this earth. Our time here on earth is less than a vapor in the scope of eternity.
Now let me go back to verse 19 there again (READ).
Understand that John isn’t saying, “You had better keep yourselves saved.” He’s not saying, “It’s up to you to maintain the salvation that Jesus purchased and God brought about by His grace.” That’s not what John is saying. What he’s saying is: “The true Christian, the one who has been truly saved by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, will persevere. They will remain as part of the Body and Bride of Christ.” Those who go out… those who reject Christ, were never born again, and by going out, they show that to be the case. In other words, those are the ones who didn’t pass test one, two, and three that we’ve talked about.
So what John has done here for us is to show us… to give us three tests – to test the genuineness of our faith.
To help us to see if our confession is backed up by true, saving faith, or whether we’re fooling ourselves and playing games. And maybe you’re sitting here this morning, and this is shocking to you, and upsetting to you, and convicting you – to which I would say, “GOOD!” It’s good, because that means God is working. When Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost, it upset the people who heard him so much, they rent their clothes and cried out “What must we do?”
What must I do? I’m deceiving myself! I’m playing at being a Christian! I’m lost!
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and repent. Those are two sides of the same coin. True faith leads to repentance… Worldly sorrow leads to death, but Godly sorrow leads to live. True faith leads to true repentance, just like it leads to obeying Christ, and loving your neighbors, and walking as He walked, and growing to hate the world and the sin that’s in it. None of the works save us… the works are what’s born out of a true saving faith.
Let me close with this. If you have never trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior… or maybe you’re here today, and you know deep down, that you’re not really a Christian, even though you’ve claimed to be one. Or if you need prayer for a lost loved one, or prayer for something you’re facing. Whatever it might be. If the Lord is leading you, I want to invite you talk with me. If you have questions about how it is that God draws us to Christ, or how God works in our hearts to produce repentance and faith, or anything at all, Please come forward as we close.
CLOSING
