That We Might Know What We Know

Steven W. Schenewerk

Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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1 John 2:3-11

When you look at the following image, what do you see?

Likely some of you see a vase, others see two faces. Which is it? How certain are you of what you see?

Is there a need for certainty? In the early 20th century physicists studying the smallest particles know to humans noted that there was a basic uncertainty to what they were observing.

So…I ask again: Do we have anything of which we can be certain ?

John will use on form or another of the verb ‘to know’ over 40 times in his letters. Any word that is repeated that often calls for our attention.

I’ve gone through my desk study Bible and noted every use of the work ‘know.’ It makes a colorful few pages!

We Know … that we know...

1 John 2:3 HCSB

This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands.

Another translation reads, “by this we know that we have come to know Him...”

In this section of his letter to believers John intends to help them define those who know God.

First, as John has already declared, we know God only because He has made Himself known in sending Jesus Christ - the One whom John heard, saw, observed, studied, and invested his life in - vs 1-4.

The knowledge of God through Jesus Christ in our lives - just as it was for John and those early believers:

OBEDIENCE.

Keeping the commandments of Jesus is THE evidence, not the cause. We don’t know God because we obey, we obey because we know God.

In the communities to whom John was writing, there were men and women who were claiming that genuine freedom was found not is deliverance from the power, penalty, and presence of sin, but in attaining to ‘higher,’ ‘secret’ knowledge.

These teachers taught that God as HE is cannot be known. In order to know God, as these false teachers were claiming, one had to seek to attain a special, spiritual knowledge through a created being a little less than God. Jesus, with His claim to be One with the Father, and the Way, Truth, Life and the only way to the Father was not a reliable revelation of God.

John insists, however, that apart from an intellectual, experiential knowledge of Jesus there can be no knowledge of God.

John also insists that those who identify themselves as knowing God will demonstrate that knowledge in the way they live their lives, by their obedience to God’s commands.

1 John 2:5–6 HCSB

But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected. This is how we know we are in Him: The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.

Since obedience is evidence of those who truly know that they are coming ti know God, this obedience will be reflected in experiencing the love of God.

God enjoys numerous kinds of love relationships, which constitute a multilateral circle of love, including (1) love between the persons of the Trinity, (2) love from God to humans, (3) love from humans to God and (4) love from believers to one another (which amounts indirectly to love toward God).

Peckham, John C.. The Love of God (p. 228). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.

How did Jesus exhibit the love of God?

Even a quick reading of the gospels shows us Jesus spending more time with people that regular Jewish society looked down upon, people that were most often regarded as ‘unfaithful, ungrateful, and unreliable.’

John affirms that the one who walks as Jesus walked, the one who obeys experiences God’s love in new and deeper ways during their lives.

A New Commandment?

John 13:34–35 HCSB

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Is this a new commandment? Or is this an old commandment?

Actually, it is both.

Leviticus 19:34 HCSB

You must regard the foreigner who lives with you as the native-born among you. You are to love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.

Jesus redefines this commandment. Instead of loving our neighbor as ourselves, the standard changes.

Now our love for one another is to be modeled on God’s love as seen in the life, death, and assurance of resurrection in Jesus.

In opposition to those claiming a secret knowledge of an unknowable God John wants his readers to note:

You can know God…

we reflect this knowledge by obedience;

we obey by choosing to love one another (in and out of the community of faith) as Jesus loves us.

Walking in the light…Walking in the darkness

1 John 1:5 HCSB

Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him.

Since God is light, dwelling as Paul writes,

1 Timothy 6:16 HCSB

the only One who has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light; no one has seen or can see Him, to Him be honor and eternal might. Amen.

How are we to explain the deepening darkness in our communities?

John offers a couple of reasons in this section:

a). too many believers are not walking in the light.

Walking in the light as He is the light at the very least means loving one another.

John is quite emphatic:

1 John 2:9 HCSB

The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother is in the darkness until now.

1 John 2:11 HCSB

But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he’s going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

The positive:

1 John 2:10 HCSB

The one who loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus proclaims:

Matthew 5:14–16 HCSB

“You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Believers who ‘abide/remains in the light’ will discover that

a). they choose to avoid stumbling - they choose to not sin;

b). others don’t stumble over their behavior - too often it is our sin that creates a barrier to believe among the lost. Non-believers see how we act toward one another, and how we act toward them and cannot see how Jesus has truly made a difference in our lives.

REFLECT and RESPOND

If I could identify one constant over the past 32 years of living in Winston and serving as pastor of Community Baptist Church, it would this:

CHANGE

We don’t have time to list all the changes that have occured, but let me highlight one or two.

First, the church has changed -

most of the people here 32 years ago are no longer here -many have passed away, many have moved out of the area, many have simply drifted out of church life;

the building is not the same - several things have changed:

a kitchen remodel

two additions to the building

paved parking lot.

The community around us has changed. In 1990 there were officially 3,948 people in the city limits of Winston. In 2021, 5,665.

Businesses have come and gone.

Churches have come and gone as well. Most notably, the Dillard Methodist Church and the Winston Church of the Nazarene no longer exist.

Too many other changes to list

In the midst of all the change, let me suggest one unchangeable truth: