Testing Points
1JOHN 1 - TESTING POINTS
It’s amazing how easily we take things and people for granted until we lose them. It’s hard to realise how much something or someone means to you until there’s an empty space where they were. I don’t want it to seem boastful or inappropriate, but to have Bible teachers minister to you who are committed with whole hearts to teaching the Word of God is an immense blessing. We have such an abundance of such men in our own congregation, and who visit us like Bill Bygroves last week. It’s one of God’s special gifts to His church - when Jesus ascended to heaven having triumphed over sin and death he gave gifts to men, and he gave some to be pastors and teachers. It’s a gift. And it’s so that Christians in the life of the church can be strengthened spiritually and be brought to a maturity in the life of faith.
These Bible teachers are like shepherds whose business is to feed the sheep of Christ’s flock. Good, wholesome, lively Bible teaching is like food for the flock. So, the Lord Jesus said to the apostle Peter, “Feed my sheep” - that’s your life purpose and ministry. If you don’t work to feed them, you won’t be working for me, the chief shepherd.
That’s all very nice. But the NT teaches that it isn’t long before men come to feed poison to the flock, believing that it’s good grass. They’ll have something attractive to say; it may sound captivating, it may be exciting, it may look good and taste good, but it’ll be deadly poison. 20 years ago this week, an evangelical minister persuaded and coerced a 900 strong congregation to commit suicide with him. He fed poison to their minds before he ever fed poison to their bodies. These men who bring false teaching to the church of Jesus are bringing poison.
So, any true pastor who cares about his people will shout a warning about the poison and those who administer it. Any parent who didn’t stop their baby drinking weedkiller would be held guilty before the courts if they could have prevented it. Any pastor who didn’t tell you about stuff that can kill your soul will be held accountable before the Chief Shepherd when he appears.
C.f. finding a torch bulb with no glass in Gareth’s mouth. Alarm, concern, search, doctor, cotton wool sandwich.
When the Apostle John wrote his first letter, he was like a worried Dad. People were coming and giving spiritual poison to John’s spiritual children. So, he shouts a warning to them in this letter. The poison is false teaching administered by Bible teachers. They came speaking bad things. Look at the references to saying - v6, v8, v10, 2:4, 6, ....and so on!!
And just in case we’re not sure who John’s talking about look at 2:18-22, 26.
So, one way to look at 1John is to say that it’s a test kit.
C.f. recent purchase of a cholesterol test kit from pharmacy.
You can use 1John to test for poison in the church, and you can use it to test yourself to see if you’ve swallowed any of this life-threatening stuff. John wants to save you from stuff that’ll put you in eternal peril. So, his last verse - Little children, keep yourselves from idols. You don’t want to lose eternal life; you don’t want to fall into mortal sin, you don’t want to fall under the spell of the evil one, the father of lies, the devil. So, don’t drink the poison, keep yourselves from idols.
1. GOD’S UNMIXED PURITY (ch. 1:5)
We’re going to look now at the first test kit. There were people coming into the congregations who were saying something. They were teaching that you could be a spiritually minded person, a person who was spiritually secure, but that you didn’t need to live a godly life. They were teaching that the blood of Jesus had cleansed us from all sin, we had nothing to worry about, God was our loving father, we couldn’t earn our salvation it was a free gift of God, therefore, the ordinary Christian was in a perfectly satisfactory condition before God and didn’t need to be concerned about holy living. “People who talk to you about holy living are legalists” they were saying. You’re free from the law of God. You don’t have to worry about the rules and regulations of religion.
And have a look at 4:2,3. They were denying that the Son of God had become incarnate. They didn’t like the idea that the Lord Jesus had become joined to human nature, to our flesh. Why? Because they wanted to create a Christian life in which you could be spiritual in your spirit, and fleshly in your body. They were teaching that spirituality didn’t have anything to do with morality. You could have sex outside of marriage and still think of yourself as a spiritual person. Sex was in your body, in your flesh, your spirituality wasn’t affected by that. So, these teachers wouldn’t accept that Jesus Christ came in the flesh.
That’s pure poison. Here’s the test - v5 - this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. God is light. Light’s always unmixed. You can’t mix darkness and light. You can’t switch on a light and have half the room pitch dark and the other flooded with light. You can’t turn on your car headlights and have one beam lighting up the road and the other making the road dark. It’s natural. Light in the NT represents the pure, unmixed character of God. It stands for moral purity - men loved darkness rather than light for their deeds were evil. It stands for truth - God has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. Darkness is a picture of sin and ignorance; unrighteousness and blindness. If you’re not a Christian tonight, you’re in the dark.
God is unmixed purity. He’s full of moral perfection and he’s full of truth, and so is His son Jesus. Yes so is his Son Jesus even when he was a man in human flesh. This same apostle says about Jesus - in Him was light, and that light was the life of men, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
People think they can fool around with God. They refuse to take Him seriously. They think they can play tag with God. “He hasn't touched me on my shoulder yet”. Why would anyone play fast and loose with a God of burning, unmixed purity. C.S. Lewis’s picture for the Lord Jesus was Aslan the Lion. A dangerous creature, a powerful creature. Full of goodness, full of kindness, but say the characters in the books, “He is not tame”. One swipe of those great paws, one blast of that powerful breath and you’re finished.
God is unmixed purity. He’s a consuming fire. He’s not to be messed around with. Played with. If you’ve never taken God seriously, and got urgent about being right with him, then you’re blind and ignorant; you’re still in the dark.
God’s unmixed purity.
2. YOUR UNAMBIGUOUS RESPONSIBILITY
Let’s do our syllogism practice, we’ve not done it for some time.
All 71 buses go to Kingston.
This is a 71 bus.
Therefore, it goes to Kingston.
To be a Christian is to walk with God (fellowship, sharing, communion)
God is light
Therefore Christians walk in light.
See 1:5-6.
If you say you’re a Christian and yet you walk in darkness you’re a liar. You lie and do not do what is true. You cannot choose to walk in light and choose to walk in the dark at the same time. You can’t live your life in the dark and the light at the same time. You can’t sit in a room full of light if you insist on switching the light off. You can’t say I’m choosing to walk in fellowship with the God who loves marriage and detests fornication while at the same time sleeping with your girl friend. You can’t say you’re walking in fellowship with the God who loves honesty while choosing to cheat people, the inland revenue, or your employer. You can’t say you’re walking in fellowship with the God who loves purity while you’re hiding those pornographic magazines, or surfing filth on the Internet on a regular basis. You can’t say you’re in fellowship with the God who loves truth and delights to reveal himself, while at the same time showing no interest in the Bible or how it applies to your life. Don’t say you’re walking in fellowship with the God who holds the church as the apple of his eye and loves to have communion with His church, when you find every excuse you can to be away from God’s people.
Do you get the picture? It’s an unambiguous responsibility. How can you say that you’re having fellowship with the God of light when you’re walking on purpose in areas of darkness. What are you saying to yourself. How are you justifying it? Are you saying - I’m spiritual in my mind even if I’m not in practice. It’s a lie.
Let me hasten to say, I’m not talking about those times when you fall into sin, hate it, confess it and pick yourself up to do better by his grace. I’m talking about settled habits of disobedience. I’m talking about the way you WALK. What is your general walk; your regular, habitual conduct. To what have you hitched up your life, your mind, your body, your money, your time. We’re talking serious business here. Don’t drink the poison that says because God is full of mercy you can live how you like, even if it’s walking in darkness.
This is an unambiguous responsibility.
3. YOUR UNIMAGINABLE PRIVILEGE
Some things seem to follow logically - some things don’t. If I said, Go to the South of France, lie on the beach in the sun for two weeks and you will - what? Get brown!! It follows. So, here - if you refuse to live your life in the dark, and instead walk in the light, walk in fellowship with and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ - then ...... What? You’ll be perfect? You’ll be good? You’ll be holy? You’ll be a terrific person?
If you walk in the light as He himself is in the light - we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 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 and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins .....
If you are a man or woman concerned to walk in the light, then you won’t go around talking about how holy your life is. “Look at me everyone, I’m walking in the light”. But if you are committed to a life lived out in response to the holy purity of God two things will result:-
a. you’ll develop Christian fellowship. If you’re living in the light, you’ll want to associate with, be part of, enjoy, benefit from other people who are living in the light. One of the simple but profound phrases in the New Testament is one another. If you’re living in the dark you get isolated from other people; because spiritual darkness lives and breathes the atmosphere of selfishness, self interest, self protection self everything. People living in the light live and breath openness, vulnerability, compassion. The more you live in fellowship with God, the more you’ll be attracted to and the more you’ll attract others. When we’re in heaven we’ll be absolutely delighted to be there with Christ and with his people. The consequence of sin in the Garden of Eden was the awareness of personal nakedness and a tendency to self protection. Adam and Eve covered up from each other and hid from God. That’s living in the dark.
Two things Jesus loved - He loved to be alone with His Father, and He loved to be surrounded by people. He was attracted to them, and they were drawn to him. Why - he was living in the light. There was no barbed wire around his heart; no keep away signs hanging from his personality; no porcupine quills sticking out if you drew close to him - unless you were a God-hating religious hypocrite.
It’s an immense privilege to know Christian fellowship. It’s a lovely thing. It’s a unique and miraculous thing when Christians living in a selfish world, share themselves, their stuff, their lives, without strings with each other. That flows out of walking in the light. As I look back over my life, some of the best things I can pick out are to do with Christians who shared themselves with me.Ian Marshall in a Bible study for four answering 20 questions every time I showed up. Ken Perrin having me round his house every week in Leeds when I was a vulnerable student in a liberal theological college. Peter Brumby who gave himself to friendship and care for me for four years and taught me the pure Gospel. Wilf and Lizzie Doel who adopted an inexperienced young minister and his wife and gave them a place in their family. The list is long and wonderful. To live in the light is to share yourself with the family of God.
b. you’ll depend on Crucifixion power. “If we walk in the light .... and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin .....” (v7) Wait a minute. You said a moment ago that to walk in the light was to live in response to God’s unmixed purity. Why do you suddenly introduce the subject of cleansing from sin - not only here but through to chapter 2:2. The more you live in the light the more you’ll need the Cross of Jesus. The brighter the light the darker the shadows. The stronger the beams the more obvious the dirt, the cobwebs, and the grubby streaks on the windows. We can never think that Christian obedience and knowledge makes us feel more perfect, more holy, more godly. The more like the Lord Jesus you become, the more you see of your need of cleansing from sin. It’s the false teacher who doesn’t glory in the Cross. The false teacher glories in what he’s experienced, what he’s done, what he is, what marvellous power and experiences he’s enjoyed.
The true Christian, the true preacher, will glory in the Cross. The more the light of the Jesus has shone into his heart the more areas of filth he’s seen and the more he clings to the Cross and to the cleansing power of Christ’s blood.
It’s an important thing. I was taught as a young Christian that I could have a great big powerful experience that would set me free from sin. I could be fully sanctified and enjoy Christian perfection. Imagine that - to live without sin in your mind and heart, without sin on your lips and in your life. I sought it, prayed for it, longed for it. Oh to able to say, “I have no sin”. I regard all that now as false teaching.
True Christian experience is the balancing of two powerful realities. I’m to seek to live a sinless life because I’m walking in the light and refusing to walk in the dark. I dare not excuse patterns of deliberate sinfulness on the grounds that I have a sinful nature. I’m to pursue a sinless life. That’s one thing. The other reality is this - the more I pursue a sinless life the more I realise how sinful I am and how much I need to come to the Cross for cleansing. I’ve got to pursue holiness and confess sinfulness at the same time. It’s a tension.
Any idea that you can treat sin lightly is poison. Any idea that sin isn’t a problem for you anymore is poison.
Walk in the light and you’ll need the Cross of Jesus. Go for holiness with all your heart and you’ll need to go to the Cross with all your failures. And the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin. To live in the light is the need the Cross.
