Hold ON!!!

Introduction:

As we continue with our worship this morning, before diving into the word together, let us spend a few moments in prayer asking God to help us understand this text this morning.

Let’s pray together.

As we continue with our study of 1 John this morning, as we look at what it means to be a follower of Christ, I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me to 1 John 2:15-27.

15 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. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

18 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. 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. 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 21 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. 22 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. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 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. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life. 26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27 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 (1 Jn 2:15–27.).

If someone were to ask you, what does it mean to be a Christian, what would you say? How would you respond? How would you answer the question, What Does It Mean To Follow Jesus?

This is what John is trying to answer for the early church. As we have been saying throughout this study is that John is writing to this church so that they can know and understand who is actually following Jesus and who is not. There are some problems in this church....and in this text John is starting to introduce us to some of what is going on here with them.....but what we have to see is, there was some real confusing on what it meant to actually follow Jesus.

The church had heard one thing from the apostles- those whom had walked with Jesus- and they were hearing some different things from some guys who probably seemed pretty religious. They seemed like they had everything going for them. They claimed to love God. They claimed to love Jesus. But there was just something not right about how they were living their lives and the things that were coming out of their mouths.

So, John is writing to this church to clear up some confusion that is going on. He is writing to tell the church how they are able to tell between those who belong to Christ and those who actually don't- despite what words may come out of their mouths.

“Good trees cannot bear bad fruit” Jesus says....and that is the same thing that is being said here. Those who follow Christ, must be seeking to be like him. We know that we are never going to do this perfectly. We have seen that throughout this letter, but those who do know Christ should be different. We should have different priorities, values, and beliefs.

As we think about this passage this morning, there are 4 truths that I want us to see from this text.

We Are NOT To Love The World.

We see this in verses 15-17.

15 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. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever (1 Jn 2:15–17.)

What John is saying here is very simple. Don’t love the World or the things in the world. That is the main command in this passage.

Now some of you might be like, “But wait a second. I thought that we were supposed to love. Wasn’t last week's message all about how we are to love our brothers and sisters in Christ?” More than that…. Doesn’t God love the world? Isn’t that what John 3:16 is all about? “For God So LOVE THE WORLD that HE gave His only begotten Son.”

This is where the word love can be tricky, isn’t it? Think of all the ways that we use the word, love. “I love my wife.” I love Ice Cream” “I love a good night’s rest.” “I love Football.”  Hopefully, I do not mean the same thing when I use the word love in those sentences, right? That would not be good for my marriage if I loved Football or ice cream in the same way I love my wife. Hopefully, based on the context, everyone would know that there is a difference here.

It is the same way here in 1 John 2. Love is not being used the same way here as it was last week when we talked about loving our brothers. I would argue that John here is talking about the affections of our hearts. What is your heart drawn to? If you want to grow in Christ, then you can’t love the world or the things of the world.

Well why not? John is going to give us some reasons.

First, he says, if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Your heart cannot be divided.  You cannot love God and love the world too. Jesus says something similar to that when he talked about Loving God and Money. He said that you cannot do it. You will either be devoted to one and despise the other, or you will serve one and not the other. You cannot serve God and Money.

Or, you can think in terms of how James puts it when he says...

4 You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God (Jas 4:4.)

John here is saying to us…. check your heart's affections. What do you long for?

If we find ourselves in love with this present age, then perhaps God’s love is not in us because God’s love changes our desires.

That is where he is getting at in verse 16. In the original text verses 15 and 16 are not two different sentences, they are one. A better way to read this would be, “15 Do not love the world or the things in the world , if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him16 because everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world.

Do you see that? We are not to love the world because if we love the world the love of the Father is not in us because everything in the world is not from God but from the world.

It is only right to ask then…. WHAT  Does John mean by  “the world”?  He clarifies that for us with three statements. He is not talking about the world in which we see and live in, right? That world God created, and it is good and beautiful and shows God’s goodness and glory. Nor is he talking about the world in the sense in which involves people. That is also incorrect.

John is talking about the world in the sense of a worldly system. A World view. A Worldly value system. The things that pull on our sinful nature. Look at how John describes it… The lust of the flesh- that is the things that pull at our natural desires. The lust of the eyes- That is the desire that we look at and see.

The Pride of one’s possessions. - That is our achievements and the things that we own.

I love how on author explained it, listen to his words (Quote on pg 40.)

Does that not summarize our culture, what our culture values anyway?  John is saying, if these are the things that have your heart, or your affections, then you don’t have the love of the Father inside of you!

The second reason that John gives for not loving the world is found in verse 17.

All of those things that the world values…. Well they are not going to last. They are going to be burned up.  They will perish. They are passing away. There is nothing lasting about them.

However, on the other hand, those who do the will of God, those who walk with God, those who are growing in maturity with Christ because of Christ… they will last forever.

What a contrast. Perish or live forever. Those who have given their hearts to God, those that seek to love Him with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength will get to spend an eternity with Jesus.

As we think about this passage this morning, I want you to ask yourself, what has your affections? What do you love in this life? What areas, what lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, or pride in possessions is waging war inside of you, and how are you going to fight against it?

Christ wants all of our hearts. They cannot be divided. Let us seek to Love Him with everything that we are, and may He change us as He changes our hearts.

What we Believe about Jesus matters.

I know that Theology, or Doctrine, or beliefs is not a popular topic in culture, right? Like most people don’t sit up at night contemplating the differences between Calvinism, Wesleyan, Lutherans, or anything like that. Most people just don’t care. Those things are for the those guys who teach classes and stuff and have WAYYYY too much time on our their hands.

But, I gotta be honest with you. What you believe, your belief system, your theology or Doctrine, does indeed matter in your life. What you believe will directly affect the way that you live.

Let me prove it to you. I need two volunteers.

(Trust Test).

If you believe something, you will give your entire life to it. You have complete trust in it. Like hitting your breaks on a car, trusting that small yellow line in the road, driving to the store to get food, its not like we don’t expect there to be food when we get there. When that happens we get upset. What we believe has a huge impact on how we live life.

What John is warning here in this text is that there are some people that were among this church who were teaching some incorrect things about Christ….so much so that he calls them “antichrist.”

When we normally here that word, “Antichrist,”  we normally think of THE ANTICHRIST. The one who is going to come at the end of the age. The one that Daniel and Jesus calls the “abomination that causes desolation” or the one that Paul will call the “Man of Lawlessness.” And for sure, we should expect that person to rise up right before Christ comes back, but notice here in the text what John is talking about. He is not talking about “THE Anitchrist” he is talking about small group of antichrists. He says that “many antichrists have come.” He talks about a present reality and plurality of them.

These are a group of people, who I would argue are alive in every age,  who go against the teachings of Christ. John says that is how we know that it is the last hour. This is how we know that we are indeed living in the End Times. There are people who are out there who are going against the teachings of Christ and everything that He stands for.

And here is the scariest thing….. these people don’t always come from the outside. These people came from inside the fellowship of the church. That is why John can write, “they went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be clear that none of them belong to us.”

John says that these people abandoned the faith that they said that they were apart of. Remember what I said about how your beliefs will impact how you live your life. That is what is happening here. These people left the fellowship of the church because they never really were part of it.

How many times have you seen this happen, someone goes to church their whole life and then one day they walk away? Why is that? Now, I can’t say that in every situation or circumstance that this is the case, but based off this passage we at least have to throw up the possibility that maybe they never really belonged to Christ in the First place. It could be that some people that we know have gone out for a time and a season in life, which we will talk about in in a second, but if these people go out and start believing a complete a total lie, then we have reason to believe that these people have never really accepted the Gospel to begin with.

This is what we see in this text. It not just their leaving the fellowship though, if you look down at verses 20-23, we can see the reason why they left the fellowship. They left because the denied that Jesus is the Christ.  IF you do not have Jesus then you DO NOT have a right relationship with God.  That is what John is saying here, and in order to have a right relationship with God then you have to have the right Jesus.

Let me ask you, what are some of the false beliefs that we hear about today?

So, what does this mean for us then? How are we to fight against these things in our culture and in our lives? How do we stand strong in the faith?

We have an anointing from the Holy One.

We this language in verses 20 & 27.

When people accept Christ as their savior, they are not left to do the Christian life on their own. We are given the Holy Spirit who comes and lives inside of us. He is our anointing. He is the one whom has been given to us to help us live out this Christian life. The Apostle Paul say’s this about the Holy Spirit 13 When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.14 He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory. (Eph 1:13-14 CSB)

The Holy Spirit is given to each and every person who accepts Christ at the moment of their salvation. There is no exception. But, notice what is said here, He is the down payment of our inheritance…..some translations put the “guarantee of our inheritance…”  If you have been given the Holy Spirit then there is no way that He will be taken away from you….this is promise made in Scripture.

Listen to what Jesus said concerning the Holy Spirit:

15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commands.16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. (Joh 14:15-16 CSB)

26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit-- the Father will send Him in My name-- will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you. (Joh 14:26 CSB)

12 "I still have many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come.14 He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you.15 Everything the Father has is Mine. This is why I told you that He takes from what is Mine and will declare it to you. (Joh 16:12-15 CSB)

Part of the Holy Spirit’s job in a believer’s life is to teach us what is right and what wrong. It is what we would call the work of Illumination. This is the reason why we start each Sermon with prayer, or I suggest every time we read the Bible for ourselves that we begin with prayer….it is because we need the Holy Spirits help in understanding the Scriptures.

What John is saying here in this passage is that because we have been given the Holy Spirit, we don’t have to listen to any “NEW” teaching about Christ because what we need to know will be taught to us. Now, John isn’t saying that we don’t need human teachers, that would go against everything that else in the NT, but what is being said here is that you and I have the same access to the same knowledge about God and Christ. I have nothing new to teach you, and I am just as dependent on the Holy Spirit on learning this stuff as you are…. We may have different giftedness, but we are also told that that too is from the same Spirit, so that doesn’t even matter. All of us in the room, those who have accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior have access to the Holy Spirit and have been anointed by Him and are to be lead by Him in our understanding of this WORD.

This brings me to the last point I want to make that we see in this text as we consider what it means to be followers of Jesus.

We are to Remain in Him.

We have heard this language over and over again through this letter. There is this call for the Christian to remain in Christ. To remain in Him means to stay connected to Him. Think of Jesus’ teaching on the Vine and the branches.

How does fruit grow?  It has to stay connected to the vine right? If the branch gets broken off, or is cut off, or in my case when I was a teenager ran over by the lawn mower, guess what? The FRUIT DIES. It is not going to make it.

The same is true with the Christian. If we do not remain connected to Christ, we will suffer in the lack of growing fruit for Christ.

This can become very confusing when we think about it, right? So, does a person lose their salvation then if they are no longer connected to Jesus?

The answer to that question, as I said earlier we would come back to this, would be no.  If that person leaves the Vine altogether, then I believe that the Bible teaches that that person never really understood the Gospel to begin with, and as Christians we need to pursue them to help them understand the Gospel correctly.

However, I believe that the Bible puts forth some warnings for us to consider, one of which is the call to remain in Him.

Some people talk about “Eternal Security” or “Once Saved Always Saved.” What people typically mean by that is that once a person has truly accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, meaning that they have repented of their sins and placed their faith in Jesus, that person cannot lose their Salvation.

I get that. I believe that. However, I think that maybe a better was to understand is in what is called the “Perseverance of the Saints.”  This doctrine teaches that all who have truly been born again will continue to walk with Christ until the day they die. That is what is taught in a nut shell, and this is what we see in Scripture.

Consider Jude 1:1, Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and a brother of James: To those who are the called, loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ. (Jud 1:1 CSB)

Or listen to Jesus’ words in John 10

27 My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish-- ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30 The Father and I are one." (Joh 10:27-30 CSB)

A true believer will NEVER be able to fall so far away from Christ that they are no longer a Christian. They cannot lose their salvation, and that is not because of anything on their part, but because they have been given the Holy Spirit and are being kept by Christ. They are HIS. WE are HIS. WE belong to HIM, and because of that, He will take care of US!

I love how the Baptist Faith and message words this, listen to our doctrinal statement on this.

All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

This is what the Bible teaches; this is what John is teaching this passage this morning.

Conclusion:

If I had to bring it all down into one point this morning for us to consider it would be this…

Main Point: As followers of Christ, we are to HOLD ON.

We are to Hold onto the things that we have been taught to us and not to run after the many false teaching in the world.

We are to Hold onto the things being taught to us by the Holy Spirit.

We are to Hold onto Christ….to remain in Him.

When we do that, here is the result… look down at verse 28-29 with me.

28 So now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

We can have confidence when Jesus comes back, don’t you want that?

And, we are able to tell who is truly walking with the Lord and who needs to hear the Gospel.

Let me ask you this morning, what are you holding on to?  How are you going to hold onto Christ this coming week?

24 What you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life.