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A few weeks ago, we looked at the first chapter and a half of a very interesting letter, 1 John. In this letter, John, who as an old man had been exiled away from everything he knew and loved, writes about his desire for fellowship – not just for himself, but also for all the people of God.
John told his readers that fellowship breaks down because every one of us is sinful. Yes, even people in the church are sinful – I know, isn’t this shocking? When we are selfish, when we pursue our own desires instead of looking to the needs of others, fellowship is broken.
This is true, John writes, most especially with our relationship with God. Instead of pursuing him, loving him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we give our minds, hearts, souls, and strengths to other things. When this is done, fellowship with God is broken as well.
How can fellowship be restored? John’s very strong answer to this is grace. Our relationship with God is restored when he graciously reaches down and fixes the problem of sin by the death of Jesus on the cross.
And our relationships with each other are restored when we do for others what God has done for us: just as God showed his gracious love to us while we were still sinners, our relationships with each other can only be restored when we show God’s gracious love to each other, even while they are sinning. When it comes to our relationships with each other, who is more wrong doesn’t matter nearly as much as we think it does. What matters more is who is extending divine grace to the other.
So this is John’s letter so far: First, fellowship with God & with each other is the goal. Second, fellowship is broken by our sin against God and against each other. And third, fellowship is restored when God shows us his grace, and then when we show God’s grace to each other.
However, in this next part of the letter, John warns us about two looming obstacles to this whole process, two large hurdles that stand in our path as we run this race.
We see the first in verses 15-17:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Here John cautions his readers about the danger of loving the world. He contrasts the things from the Father with the things from the world, and he tells us not to love the world. But what does this mean? Let’s think through this.
By “do not love the world”, John is not telling us that our enemy is the physical world. Tangible, physical things – dirt, plants, animals, and the like – are not the cause of our spiritual struggles. The physical world can certainly effect us deeply; we cannot discount that fact. But when we struggle with issues of fellowship, sin, grace, and the like, the underlying root problem is spiritual, not physical.
When I was growing up, my parents told me many times that while I can’t often control the things that happen to me, I can always control my reaction to those things. It’s like this:
A child is playing at recess when another child hits him. In response to this one problem, different children will react in very different ways. One child will go to the teacher with tears in his eyes and tell what happened, hoping to gain the support of the authorities. A second child will simply hit back. A third child might withdraw and mope about being picked on, but a fourth child might secretly rally the other students and turn them against the one who hit him. I’ll let you guess about which one of those kids I was.
Depending on the circumstances, some of those responses might be appropriate while others are not. But in each case, the child who was hit cannot point at the child who hit him and say, “My reaction is his fault!”
It is very, very dangerous to blame our spiritual problems on physical things. If we struggle with a particular sin, such as selfishness, laziness, lust, or drunkenness, it is not the fault of something outside myself: it’s not the fault of other people, my bed, my computer, or a bottle. If I struggle with those sins, it is my fault. We can burn our beds and still be lazy. We can sell our computers and still be lustful. We can never touch a bottle again and still lack self-control.
Jesus put it this way: it is not the tangible, physical thing that goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but the spiritually revealing thing that comes out of the mouth; this is what defiles a person. Until we begin to see the true source of the problem – my own heart – then we will never be able to deal with the problem.
Indeed, this is John’s very point! Too often Christians read John’s instruction, “do not love the world or the things in the world,” and they focus on the world and the things; they think that they can follow John’s instruction by purging themselves of the right worldly things. But the key word in this sentence is the word love!
Understood properly, love is the key word for all our lives. What does God ask of us? The first and foremost thing, basic idea number one, the first rung on the ladder, the most fundamental thing God asks of us is to love him with everything we have: heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second thing he asks of us is like it, in that it is also a command to love.
When John says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world,” the emphasis is on our love. What do we invest in and pursue more than anything else? That is what we love! There are at least two reasons why we should love God and each other more than we love the things of the world.
First, v. 17 points out that this world is temporary. It is “passing away,” but doing the will of God abides forever. Which is the better choice, to pour ourselves into things and experiences that come and go, or to invest in things that last forever?
Second, loving the things of the world is incompatible with love for God. When it comes to love, there is only room at the top of our hearts for one thing. We were designed to love God more than anything else; if we love anything else more than we love God, then we are not functioning as we are designed to function. If we are not functioning as we are designed to function, then we cannot be happy. Isn’t it ironic that the things of the world, which promise us so much joy and happiness, take those very things away from us in the end?
So the world is the first obstacle in our path as we seek to be the kind of gracious, loving, fellowshipping community that John is describing in this letter. And by the world, John is not pointing to something outside ourselves, but rather is pointing to our own hearts: do we love temporary things more than permanent things? Do we love God most, or do we love the world and the things of the world?
If we cannot answer these questions satisfactorily, then we cannot clear the first hurdle, we cannot have this kind of gracious, loving, fellowshipping community.
John describes the second hurdle in verses 18-27:
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 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. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.
The second obstacle to our gracious, loving, fellowshipping community is anti-Christ. Some people want to make anti-Christ into a single person, the Anti-Christ, an end-times figure who will do certain things before the second coming of Jesus.
But John doesn’t seem to have any idea of a single Anti-Christ; he talks about many anti-Christs having already come when he wrote this letter, and he says that this kind of thing will continue into the future.
So what is this anti-Christ? What does it look like? John identifies anti-Christs as teachers who deny truth and teach falsehood. In v. 19, John says they claim to be sent from the apostles and represent themselves as teachers of truth. But the reality is they should not have gone out as teachers; these are people who need most to learn. They should have stayed with the apostles as students, but instead they set themselves up as teachers.
More importantly, these anti-Christs are exactly that – anti Christ – because of what they teach. Specifically, they deny the two most important, fundamental truths about who Jesus is and what he has done.
First, anti-Christs deny that Jesus is the Christ – that is, the Messiah who is responsible for the salvation of man. This is the number one, most fundamental, most central doctrine of the Christian faith. Either we believe that Jesus died in our place, substituting for us, on the cross, or we believe that our salvation depends on who we are and what we can do.
All religions on earth can be divided into two categories at this point. All religions but one teach that the answer to man’s problems lies within himself. If only he tries this or does that, he can solve his own problems.
Only Christianity teaches that man cannot by any means save himself. Someone else had to do it for him. To deny that Jesus is the chosen one, the promised one, the one sent to save humanity from its broken fellowship and its broken love – to deny those things is to be an anti-Christ.
Second, anti-Christs deny that Jesus is God. John highlights this in verses 22-23: This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.
To deny the fundamental relationship between the Father and the Son is to deny that Jesus is God. To deny this idea, this Trinitarian idea, runs completely against the Bible. Yes, I know that the word ‘trinity’ never appears in the Bible. I’ve been reminded of this many times.
But to emphasize that fact here is to overlook the fact that this is one of the most Trinitarian passages in the entire Bible! Look at what John is calling us to believe: he says that to deny the Son is to deny the Father; we must accept them both. You can’t have God but not Jesus. Either you confess the Son along with the Father, or you are constructing your own God.
And see how John says we are able to confess this fundamental relationship between the Father and the Son: it is only through the work of the Holy Spirit. Those who are in Christ have been anointed by the Holy One, John writes in v. 20. This is his first response to the obstacle of anti-Christ.
Some people believe that being anointed by the Holy Spirit is a special circumstance, something that happens only to a certain few Christians. But John writes that all his readers have received this anointing. The work of the Holy Spirit is for all Christians; everyone who is in Christ has been anointed by the Holy One, he says in v. 20.
John writes that the Holy Spirit will permanently abide in us (v. 27). The Holy Spirit will give us knowledge (v. 20) and lead us to truth (v. 21, 27). This means that the Holy Spirit is by the power of God actively re-forming us – re-shaping us, re-fashioning us, making us more like what God has called us to be.
And when we see the re-forming work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, it assures us that we are not in this on our own, that our salvation does not depend on our own goodness. Are you different now than you were a year ago? Five? Ten? The typically quiet, steady work of the Holy Spirit on our souls reminds us continually that he who began this work in us is faithful and will finish the job.
God does not intend us to blindly follow teachers. We are meant to take the things we have heard and weigh them against the knowledge that the Holy Spirit has given us. We are meant to analyze, discern, and judge the things we hear, not just passively sit back and listen to whatever someone happens to tell us.
We must do so humbly, recognizing that we are in-progress and certainly don’t know everything yet. But John’s first means of overcoming the obstacle of anti-Christ is to point us toward the work of the Holy Spirit within us.
His second means of overcoming the obstacle of anti-Christ is to repeatedly remind his reader to go back to the beginning. You already know the truth, he writes in v. 21. You have already received the instruction that you need about who Jesus is and what he has done, he writes in vv. 26-27. Abide in the things that you learned in the beginning, he tell his reader in vv. 24 & 27.
Think of it this way: You can’t become a master builder without first learning the first things about building. You can’t become a college professor without knowing the first thing about your subject.
What is the first thing we learn as Christians? What is it that made us a Christian in the first place? What was the idea that separated us from everything non-Christian at the beginning? Is it not that the God of the universe sent his only Son to die for me, a sinner who could not save myself?
Do you see? The single idea that made us Christian in the first place – that the God of the universe sent his only Son to die for me, a sinner who could not save myself – affirms both the relationship between the Father and the Son and affirms that Jesus is the Messiah, the very two things that John upholds as the answer to anti-Christ.
If we are in Christ, if the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, then we already know the first things that are needed to clear the hurdle of anti-Christ and have a gracious, loving, fellowshipping community.
There is just one last thing that we need to keep in mind. It is too easy to point at worldliness and anti-Christ where it exists outside ourselves and say, there is the problem! This is always the temptation when we read what God requires of us. When we hear his commands, we too often respond like the man who said to Jesus, “I have done all these things!”
When we read about Cain and Abel or David and Goliath, of course we are Abel! Of course we are David! But if we take an honest look at ourselves, we see the truth: on our own, we have more in common with the bad guys than we do the good guys. Every day I reveal my soul to be more like Cain’s than Abel’s.
When we read this passage, we must be honest and admit that far too often in our lives, we have loved the world and the things of the world instead of God. Far too often in our lives, we have listened to and followed the false ideas of anti-Christ instead of remembering the first things. When we read these things in the Bible, it is important that we remind ourselves, “That is me!”
But always remember this as well: If you are in Christ, then by his work on the cross and by the re-forming work of the Holy Spirit, God loves you and treats you as if you were the good guy, always the good guy, as if you had never loved anything more than God and never believed anything that was anti-Christ.
This is, in fact, the first thing you learned, the very thing John is telling you to go back to. Remember: the God of the universe sent his only Son to die for you, a sinner who could not save yourself. And the Father who began that work before the creation of the world, finalized it with the work of his Son on the cross, and is perfecting it even now by the work of the Holy Spirit – he is faithful to complete it.
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