Today we continue discuss John’s concern that believers discover how to maintain unbroken fellowship with Christ. It is the secret to living a dynamic Christian life.
If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink….out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water(JN 7:37-38) ’This he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in Him were to receive’(7:39a)
In Chapter 2 and beginning in verse 3 John deals with the issue of how a person can really know that they are saved. You must have relationship before you can have fellowship.
Say ’I know’ Clint Eastwood. Seen most of his movies, edited of course, and am very familiar with what he believes about many things. But if you asked him about me he would say, ’Who?’ ’Never heard of him’. I know him but I don’t know him. I don’t have any relationship with him so it is impossible for me to go further and have any fellowship with him. Many know about God, are f amiliar with Him, what He has done and what He stands for but they don’t ’know’ Him and thus can have no real fellowship with Him. One builds into the other.
The Greek word for ’we know’ occurs twenty times in this letter. John is saying that knowing you are a Christian is not a matter of doubt but a believer can be certain. What are some proofs, clear indicators of a relationship with Christ out of which can develop real fellowship?
By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, ’I have come to know Him’, and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His Word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know t hat we are in Him; the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. 2:3-6)
PROOF #1: An Obedient Heart (3) By this we know that we have come to know Him, IF we keep His commandments. (4) The one who says, ’I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him;’
1. John likes to compare the things that people say with the things that they actually do. Jesus said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do the things that I say?’(Luke 6:46)
Fair Characatures: Drawings meant to imitate the real thing but are distorted in certain ways to enhance a particular thing beyond it’s proper meaning.(Oversized nose or hair) Some people have made characatures of Christianity which has distorted the real thing out of some proportion. See it as only a way to get to heaven, something for someday, ’sweet by and by’. Others see it as a hope for self-improvement or behavior modification. To learn to act better. ’You can’t purify the water by painting the pump’. That happens but is a distortion of the real meaning of Christianity. Q- Do I really have a relationship with the Person of Jesus Christ?
2. Look at the phrase, ’By this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments’. ’Come to know’ is in the PERFECT TENSE meaning ’something done in the past’ while ’keep His commandments’ is PRESENT TENSE. A sign that we have in the past come to know Him(have relationship) is our present behavior. Your actions have changed because you have changed.
a. Note: we are not saved by keeping but we can know we are saved by the fact that we keep His commandments.
3. Intensity in the word ’keep’. It carries a very unique meaning.(Imagine the battles in church history if Bible originally written in English instead of Greek: provides portraits of meaning)’ More than just to keep as a possession or to place a guard over.
a. Literally ’to value as a treasure’. It was a word used in SAILING. The phrase ’keep the stars’. In John’s time the stars were the only thing between you and being lost at see. You learned to ’keep them’ or to set your course by them. They were dear to you and your treasured them.
Imagine meeting President Bush and him asking you to hold his watch until he returns. You would guard it with your life.
b. It is more than an attitude but is an inner desire to do what is asked. Not just doing something because it is the thing to do or it might bring us certain benefits but it is the passion of our heart. It is a holy desire to obey God because of your love for Him.
1) Sign of our salvation is a change in our attitude about obey God.
John 14:15 - If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
John 14:21 - He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.
4. John becomes much more confrontive in verse 4 says, ’The one who says, ’I have come to know Him’ (boastful assumption) and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him’.
a. Changes from the plural to the singular and confronts the individual who might have made such a statement. You may say one thing about yourself but somewhere in your life there is proof otherwise.
Counterfit bills are never made in odd denominations($3 or $8 or $12) but are meant to imitate the real thing. At first glance they seem real, you may have passed them along without knowing it. But there is always something bogus about them, some blur or omition, something that doesn’t exactly correspond to real money. Phony Christians may fool many people: go right places, hang with right crowds, say the right things(John says they say ’I know Him’) but their experience is t hat of an unchanged life. Unchanged on the inside(Lack a desire to surrender before the Lord). Paul says, ’they profess to know God but by their deed they deny Him’.
SPURGEON: An unchanged life is the sign of an uncleansed heart’.
b. There is no deliverance from the self-centered life although they may claim to have a relationship with God. They have not been delivered from bondage and the power of sin and set free to serve Jesus with a surrendered heart. A new heart to serve God and obey Him.
Story is told of Alexander the Great and a small company of soldiers. They approached a fortified walled city at which time Alexander demanded that the king surrender the city to his little band of fighting men.
The king laughed, ’Why should I surrender to you? You can do us no harm!’ Alexander offered a demonstration: he ordered his men to line us in single file and to start marching towards a sheer cliff. Without hesitation one after another marched over the side to his death. After 10 died Alexander ordered the line to stop and for the rest to return to his side. The townspeople and king were shocked and immediately surrendered.
PROOF #2: An Abiding Walk (5) but whoever keeps His Word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him; (6) the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
1. The ’perfecting’ of the love of God in our lives is an evidence that something real has happened in us. It means to come to a place of completion or to real it’s goal. It gradually takes over our lives and changes us, perfecting us from within. Paul said, ’the outer man is decaying but the inner man is being renewed day by day’. He also said in Romans 12 that we are to be ’transformed by the renewing of our minds’. That happens when we become ’living sacrifices’.
a. God desires this process in our lives and the pace at which it happens depends upon us. Some are particularly resistant to God’s work in their lives and it can take years or tragedies to bring progress.
2. The secret is found in verse 6: ABIDE Same word Jesus used when He spoke to His disciples about staying with Him to watch while at Gethsemane. They failed, asleep in the job. How are we doing?
a. To abide has the same meaning as to ’have fellowship’(koinonia)
John 15:4 ’As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abide in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me’. You can be a member of the vine and only bear leaves but if you want fruit in your life you have to abide in the vine. Many today who have only the outer symbols of Christianity but no fruit in their lives. Reason is they have a superficial surface relationship with Christ. PREACH CREAM BUT LIVE SKIM MILK.
MCGEE: I get the impression from many folks that they want to live as much like the unsaved as possible and still be Christians.
3. How do I learn to ABIDE? Learn to walk as Jesus walked. ’he ought to walk in the same manner as He walked’
a. 1:7 He walked in the light(nothing hidden, 1:9)
b. 3:3 He walked in purity
Popular today to ask WWJD, What would Jesus do? There is some benefit in that. If Jesus were sitting next to you on the couch at home you might ask, ’What would Jesus watch?’ Or if you were speaking to someone you might ask, ’What would Jesus say?’ But there are limitation to that concept. I took Shiloh to a batting cage once and decided I would get in a different cage that threw the ball the hardest. I hadn’t swung at a baseball in almost 25 years and it showed. I could ask, ’What would Mark McGuire do?’ And it wouldn’t help because I am not Mark McGuire and nobody watching doubted that for a second. If we are truly going to do as Jesus would do, or as John puts it ’walk as Jesus walked’ then our only hope is to Abide in Him that His life might be live out through us and accomplish the miracle that Christianity is meant to be.
a. Jesus walked in total, unrelenting, unbroken fellowship and dependence upon the activity of the Father who indwelt Him. He walked in total surrender to the Father’s will.
1) This is the secret of victory over sin, over self. To learn to depend completely on Him for all that we need in order to live for Him and serve Him. A living relationship in which He lives out His live through us.
2) What would Jesus do if He were here? He is here, living out His resurrection life through our daily steps. In Our Steps
GAL 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me.
3) It is learning live in expectation(faith -assurance of things hoped for and conviction of things not seen) expectation of His working in our lives and our consent to it being done. It is to absolutely renounce the self-life, our self-centeredness around which our lives have so long been built.
CONCLUSION: Do you know that you are saved today? Is there any evidence in your actions? The question is not do you know about Jesus but do you know Him? And if you know Him is your life surrendered to His will and is His life being lived out through you?
A father was walking with his son past a construction sight in Chicago when the boy looked us and say the men working on a high story of the building. ’Dad, ’What are those little boys doing up there? ’Those are men’ ’Why do they look so small?’ ’They are so high’ ’When they get to heaven there won’t be anything left of them’
You know progress is being made when the world is seeing less of you and more of Jesus. John the Baptist said, ’He must increase but I must decrease’. Paul said that the goal of this life and all God’s work on us is that we might be made into the image of Jesus Christ.’
