I have yet to meet anyone who actually likes to take tests. In fact some people have a phobia about taking tests, they freeze up as soon as the test is passed out, suddenly the light seems brighter, the room seems smaller. Recently I ran across some impossible test questions that are sure to strike fear into the heart of any test taker.
For the final exam of a history class: Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to present day, concentrating on its social, political, economic, religious and philosophical impact on Europe, Asia, America and Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific.
Or how about the final for a medical student: You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has been inspected by the professor. You have fifteen minutes.
Here’s one for an engineering student: The disassembled parts of a high powered rifle have been placed in a box on your desk. You will find an instruction manual printed in Swahili. In ten minutes, a hungry Bengal tiger will be admitted into the test room. Take whatever action you feel appropriate, and be prepared to justify your decision.
Or how about this question: Define the universe; give three examples.
Even when we come across test questions that seem simple on the surface, we find that they’re often not as simple as we first thought. For instance, the answer to the question, "How long did the Hundred Years War last?’ seems obvious, but the answer is 116 years. When a test asks, "Which country manufactures Panama hats?" the correct answer is Equador. Here’s another: From what animal do we get cat gut? From sheep and horses of course. In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November. What was King George IV’s first name? Well, everyone knows it was Albert. Ah yes...many test takers are glad to be out of school...far away from trick questions like that thought up in some teacher’s lounge.
But as far as we try to get from the rigors of the academic life, we find our lives are filled with other kinds of tests. We take driver’s tests, drug tests, polygraph tests, sobriety tests, eye tests, entrance exams. People in law enforcement have to qualify on the shooting range at least four times a year, many of you have to take a test for your chosen profession. Like it or not, tests are a part of life.
But is there a test to determine whether a person is on the right track spiritually? Two weeks ago we started a new series through the New Tesatment book of 1 John called A ROADMAP FOR THE JOURNEY. We’ve been treating the apostle John’s little letter to the Christians living in Asia Minor as a kind of Rand McNally map for the spiritual journey. We started by looking at our need to have the right foundation, the right companions, the right source, and the right goal in the spiritual journey. Then last week we looked at God’s calling to authenticity with each other as we walk this spiritual journey together.
But today we’re going to look at three tests we can use to determine whether our spiritual walk is pleasing to God. These three tests are reliable indicators we can use in our lives to gauge our spiritual journey. As much as we don’t like taking tests, we must admit that they’re helpful and good sometimes, that a test can help us evaluate where we are. So approach these three tests as ways of doing some self-assessment this morning, as we seek to make sure our spiritual journey is a walk that’s pleasing to God.
1. Test One: Loving Obedience (1 John 2:3-6)
As we’ve talked about in the previous weeks, the churches in ancient Asia Minor the apostle John was writing to were being torn apart of internal strife and division. God’s Church--a place meant to be a refuge, a family, a safe place to grow spiritually--had become a bitter battleground. Many of the church members who’d once been viewed as spiritual leaders had dropped out of the church and were now pursuing their own private spiritual life apart from the rest of the church community. Maybe some of you can identify with the pain and confusion John’s friends were experiencing, maybe someone you know once had what appeared to be a strong walk with God, but that person’s turned away from his or her faith in Jesus Christ now. Now when you look at that person’s life you don’t see any evidence of God’s work, and you struggle because they once seemed so close to God. That’s what John’s friends were struggling with. Many false ideas about Jesus were being taught, and this was causing confusion about what was really true about Jesus Christ.
In this setting John gives us the first test for us to evaluate whether or not our spiritual walk is pleasing to God in vv. 3-6. How can we know that we’ve truly come to know God in a life changing way? Is it the church we go to? Or the size of the Bible we carry? Or the length of our hair or the way we dress? Or is it having some sort of supernatural spiritual experience, like falling on the ground in front of a TV evangelist, or speaking in another language?
John says, No...the way we can be sure we’ve come to know God is by obeying God’s commands. Now this word "obey" is a very interesting word, because it’s focus is on doing something over and over again. Bible scholar Raymond Brown says that the emphasis of this word "obey" is on the continuous nature of the action (252). One Bible teacher has called it, "daily, detailed, and disciplined obedience" to God (Jackman 49).
Now John doesn’t specify which of God’s commands we’re supposed to live lives of obedience to. Is it the detailed Jewish food laws of the Old Testament, or the laws about what’s ceremonial clean or unclean? Are these commands of God a lengthy list of religious rules and rituals, detailed ceremonies, and religious hoops to jump through. People in Jesus Christ’s generation often debated the question of which of God’s commands were the most important. Jesus himself was asked this question. Jesus’ answer was, Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:28-31). The heart of God’s commands are summed up in the command to love God wholeheartedly and to love other people sacrificially. This is what matters to God, because a life that loves God and love others will obey God’s other commands. These are the commands John is referring to here, love for God and love for people.
John tells us that if someone claims to have an intimate knowledge of God yet lives a lifestyle characterized by disobedience to God’s commands, that person’s doing a snow job on you. A person might say with his or her lips, "I have the inside track with God, God and I are on one-on-one terms" but if that person is half-hearted in their love for God or hateful toward other Christians, that person’s lying. Their actions are speaking so loud, that you can’t hear their words anymore. Yet a lifestyle characterized by obedience to God’s commands demonstrates that God’s love has had it’s proper effect on us. That’s what John means in v. 5 when he says, "If anyone obeys God’s word, God’s love is truly made complete in him." The word translated "made complete" means to accomplish its purpose (Louw and Nida 68.31). You might say that an antibiotic is made complete in a person when that antibiotic kills off the infection it was given to treat. Or a person’s education is truly made complete when she graduates from college. In a similar way, the reason God gives us his love--it’s purpose in our lives--isn’t just to forgive our sins, or to make us feel good, or to heal our hurts, but it’s ultimately to lead us to obedient lives. When a person receives Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, the Bible says that God pours out His love into that person’s heart through the Holy Spirit, yet that love doesn’t achieve it’s purpose--it isn’t’ made complete--until that person is living a life of obedience to God’s commands.
We learn in v. 6 what this obedient life looks like: It looks like the life of Jesus. You see, Jesus isn’t only our Savior and our Lord, but he’s also our example, our model of what an obedient lifestyle looks like. When we read about the way he conducted his life, the way he ordered his world, the decisions he made, the priorities he treasured, the habits he cultivated, the company he kept, this is a prototype for us of what an obedient life looks like. At the end of his life, Jesus could pray, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do" (John 17:4). Obviously we’re not going to be able to do that exactly like Jesus since he never sinned and we sin every day--some of us every hour--yet Jesus Christ is the prototype, the pattern, the model we’re to pattern our lives after.
In this section we find the first test of a pleasing walk with God. Our spiritual journey is pleasing to God when it is CHARACTERIZED BY LOVING OBEDIENCE.
Obedience to God’s commands that springs from a heart of love is a sure sign that our walk is pleasing to God, that God’s love is accomplishing it’s purpose in our lives. A life that continually seeks to walk as Jesus walked, to do as Jesus did, to live in his steps...that’s an obedient life.
Now it’s very important to clarify something here. We don’t begin the spiritual journey by obeying God’s commands, as if we could somehow merit or earn the right to have a relationship with God…that’s not what John is telling us here. The teaching of the Bible is that none of us can qualify for God’s acceptance, that all of us have failed, all have sinned, and therefore, we all stand in need of God’s grace. So obedience to God’s commands isn’t the door to knowledge of God; if it were then only perfect obedience to all of God’s commands would gain entry...and none of us would qualify for that. The door that opens to the spiritual life is faith--trusting our lives to Jesus Christ, believing that his death was for us, so we can come into an intimate relationship with God, that’s the only place where acceptance with God can be found. Now once we find that acceptance, God pours His love out into our hearts, and the purpose of that love is to lead us to an obedient lifestyle. Howard Marshall says, "Obeying God’s commandments is not the condition but rather the characteristic of the knowledge of God" (124).
It’s also important for me to clarify that John is not talking about perfect obedience here. John’s already told us that the no matter how spiritually mature we become, we’ll still struggle with sin in our lives…that’s as sure as death and taxes. If we claim that our struggle against sin has ceased, that we’re obedient to all of God’s commands, we’re deceiving ourselves, and we probably just need to ask our spouse or our children and they’ll set us straight. What this test is describing is an overall direction of life, a lifestyle that’s characterized by obedience to God’s commands, not perfect obedience in every detail of life.If you’re here today and your lifestyle isn’t characterized by obedience to God’s commands, if you’re not making forward progress in the spiritual life, John would challenge you to evaluate whether or not you really know God through Jesus Christ. So this first test is the test of loving obedience...how do you score?
2. Test Two: A Commitment to Truth (1 John 2:7-8)
Now talking about God’s commands immediately makes John think about the greatest command, the command for Christians to love each other in the same way Jesus Christ loves us.
John 13:34-35--"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
John 15:12-- My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
Thinking of these words, look at what John writes in vv. 7-8. Now at first it sounds like John is contradicting himself, that this is not a new command but an old one--but on the other hand it is a new command. Now remember that John is writing to Christians who were being influenced by some pretty deadly false doctrine. Most likely these false teachers--who’d once been part of the Christian community--were claiming to have new and novel ideas, in fact that was part of the draw because their ideas seemed fresh and new. It’s against this background that we need to understand what John says here.
The command for God’s people to love each other has been around since the Jewish Old Testament Law.
Leviticus 19:18 says, "’Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."
This command was reiterated throughout the Old Testament, so there’s nothing especially new or novel about the substance of the command. But when Jesus Christ came to this earth he demonstrated visibly and publicly--in a way never before imagined--what it meant to love. The cross was God’s public demonstration of his love, and no one had every seen God’s love demonstrated in such an incredible, sacrificial, and wonderful way before Jesus Christ went to the cross. Jesus’ command is for us to love each other in the way we saw him love us by going to the cross, and that’s what made this command new when he told his friends at the last supper to "love each other, just as I have loved you." But this command that was new in its depth and substance when Jesus said these words was well known and established by the time John wrote his letter. By the time John writes this letter, decades after Jesus had given that command, he wants to make sure that his friends know that he’s not advocating something new or novel, but he’s simply telling them what they’ve already been taught. So in this respect it was an old command.
But the newness that it still has is seen when it’s truth--it’s reality--as it’s experienced in our lives.
This leads John to discuss how the spiritual darkness of this world--and the spiritual darkness of the false teachers he’s trying to protect his friends from--that darkness is already passing away. God’s light is already shining and it’s getting stronger and stronger. Whenever you see God’s light mentioned, that’s usually a reference to God revealing himself, to God making himself known through Christ and through His book, the Bible.
So here we find the second test. Our spiritual journey is pleasing to God when it is characterized by A COMMITMENT TO GOD’S TRUTH.
In contrast to the latest fashionable ideas about Jesus, John is simply calling them back to what they already know, what they’d already read in his gospel, which he’d written at least ten years before this letter. The old command, the word of God--that’s what the "message you have heard" in v. 7 refers to--this is what pleases God. God’s book contains everything we need to live a spiritually vital life that pleases God, we don’t need spiritual fads or the latest spiritual fashions, we have all that we need.
Is your spiritual journey characterized by a commitment to the Bible? How do you score?
3. Test Three: Sacrificial Love (1 John 2:9-11)
Now talking about this command to love brings John to the third test in vv. 9-11. It seems to us as modern readers that John’s speaking in extreme terms here, opposites of love and hate, light and darkness. Most of us tend to think of a few people we really love--probably our family, our spouse, our children, a few friends--and maybe a few people we really dislike, and everyone else is kind neutral. We don’t categorize people as either lovers or enemies, but we treat most people indifferently, in between, not particularly loved, but certainly not hated.
Yet John doesn’t seem to leave that option open for us. If we claim to be living in God’s light--that is living a spiritual journey that pleases God--but then we hate our brother we actually living a spiritual journey of darkness. John seems to categorize passive neutrality toward other Christians as a kind of hatred toward them. There’s no room for neutrality here, says John, we either align ourselves with God by loving other Christians, or we hate them by default.
Our love for our fellow Christian is evidence that we’re walking in God’s light.
Now just like I mentioned about v. 5, it’s important to caution that this does not mean that loving others is what enables us to walk in God’s light, as if we somehow earn our way into God’s light by our works. Raymond Brown says, "Not that loving enables one to be in the light, but that being in the light given by Christ enables one to love--because love is from God and is not a purely human action." By walking in God’s light--thus also loving our fellow Christians--we won’t cause them to stumble and fall in their spiritual journey.
How many people have been driven out of the Christian community by hatred they’ve experienced from other Christians? When we fail to love each other through Christ, we actually set a trap for each other, a snare that ultimately drives people out of our churches, broken, hurting and disillusioned. How many church fights have made people stumble and fall? I mean, is it really that important what color the building is painted or the style of music we worship God with? Is it worth adding to the growing population of unchurched Christians, men and women who want to walk with Jesus Christ but who’ve given up on the church? Certainly we shouldn’t compromise God’s truth or our commitment to fulfilling God’s purposes, but some of the disagreements in the Christian community can be down right petty. A failure to effectively love each other betrays the fact that our spiritual journey has gotten off track, we’re walking in darkness now, blind to the terrible damage we’re causing to the faith of those around us.
So here we find our final test. Our spiritual journey is pleasing to God when it is characterized by SACRIFICIAL LOVE FOR OTHERS.
The churches John was writing to were being torn apart by division, controversy and dissension. It was bad enough that some of the former members were now denying that Jesus was truly God’s Messiah, the Christ, but now those who remained in the churches were fighting and criticizing each other. Now if this happened in our day, those people would’ve just found a new church, but they didn’t have that option back then, they had to get along for the Christian community to survive because they knew that their love for each other was the way the world would know they were followers of Jesus Christ. Just as dangerous as the false teaching that was attacking them from without was the lack of love that was destroying them from within. It’s not easy loving each other, especially loving people we don’t have a natural affinity for. Sure it’s easy loving my wife, and loving my kids--at least most days--and loving my friends, but loving people I find irritating, people who I think are weird, or loving people who grate me the wrong way...that takes God’s love.
That’s why the word John chooses here is the Greek word agape, which describes God’s kind of love, the kind of love that’s given freely and generously, regardless of the worthiness of the object. Loving the lovable, anyone can do that, but loving the unlovable among us--a Christian who betrays our trust, a friend who lets us down, a president who lies to our faces--this is the kind of love that’s supernatural, God’s kind of love. C. S. Lewis was right when he wrote in Mere Christianity that we spend too much time worrying about whether we really love our neighbor or not, when we should just act as if we do, and as we do loving things, love will happen.
A newspaper columnist named George Crane told once of a woman who was full of hatred toward her husband. Someone counseled the woman to act as if she really loved her husband, to tell him how much he meant to her, to praise him for every decent trait, to be kind, considerate, and generous whenever possible. Then, when she’d fully convinced him of her undying love, she’d make her move and file for divorce. With revenge in her eyes she said, "That’s perfect, I’ll do it." And so she did...but guess what happened...the more she demonstrated sacrificial love toward her husband, the more she began to actually love him, and at the end of a few months divorce was the furthest thing from her mind.
The final test is the test of sacrificial love.
Conclusion
Is your walk pleasing to God? Does your spiritual life pass these three tests? Is it characterized by loving obedience, a commitment to God’s truth, and sacrificial love? If not, then don’t condemn yourself, but discover a commitment to Jesus Christ--perhaps for the very first time--and then launch your own spiritual journey that’s not just a wonderful adventure, but that also pleases God.
