Do You Look Different than the Rest of the World?
Notes
Transcript
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
Are you Continuing in Sin? Verses 18-19
Are you Continuing in Sin? Verses 18-19
Verse 18
No one who is born of God sins:
knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
Keeps Him:
keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
God has given man an innate knowledge of him, and of right and wrong.
In Romans 2:14-16, Paul says that the Gentiles, who never received the Old Testament law, will be judged based on their conscience.
For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.
God has revealed himself to all, but the world has chosen to reject his revelation.
People reject general revelation through creation and the conscience, and also special revelation (revelation given only to specific people) through Scripture and the historical person of Christ.
Therefore, the world is “ignorant” by choice.
They don’t want to know or obey God. They willfully reject his revelation.
No Power to touch him
“I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.
Verse 19
Whole world lies in the power of the evil one
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
“I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.
who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you;
NO SLIDE
So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit:
John Stott Said,
1, 2, 3 John (3) Do Not Continue in Sin (5:18–20a)
The devil does not touch the Christian because the Son keeps him, and so because the Son keeps him, the Christian does not persist in sin.
Do you Guard against Idols in your Life? Verse 20-21
Do you Guard against Idols in your Life? Verse 20-21
The Son of God has come
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.
Given us Understanding
Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,
Him Who is True
“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this:
Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
Danny Akin Points Out,
1, 2, 3 John (3) Do Not Continue in Sin (5:18–20a)
John uses the word “true” three times in rapid succession. It should be noted that John does not say “so that they might know the truth,” which might come across as abstract and be susceptible to Gnostic teachings. Rather, John proclaims that the object of this Christ-given knowledge is personal.
This is the true God and Eternal Life - Driving home the point
and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
Guard Against Idols
Danny Akin Said,
1, 2, 3 John (3) Do Not Continue in Sin (5:18–20a)
The phrase “him who is true” refers to God, the ultimate reality, and is contrasted with the “idols” of v. 21
Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.”
Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.
1, 2, 3 John (4) Keep Yourself from Idols (5:20b–21)
it is best to take “idols” as “anything which occupies the place due to God
For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,
Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
Danny Akin Further states,
1, 2, 3 John (4) Keep Yourself from Idols (5:20b–21)
It may appear that John’s final address is somewhat anticlimactic, but in reality it confirms a very important truth he has been establishing in this last section of the epistle and in the entire epistle itself: Reject the false and embrace the real
1, 2, 3 John (4) Keep Yourself from Idols (5:20b–21)
-John, no doubt, would have in mind the “idols” of the heretical teachers who speak about a Jesus who is less than God.
-John is very disturbed by the false teachers that the god they proclaim is not merely less than perfect or close to what he holds but is altogether an idol.
-That is, their god is not real but the god of men’s imaginations.
Howard Marshall states it like this
1, 2, 3 John (4) Keep Yourself from Idols (5:20b–21)
Having emphasized that Jesus is the true God, John warns against being misled into worship of any other alleged manifestation or representation of God.
MONROE ELMON DODD
Monroe Dodd writes,
1, 2, 3 John (4) Keep Yourself from Idols (5:20b–21)
It behooves the individual Christian to be on his guard against any such God-substitute, whether it be a political idea, or some fashionable cult, or merely the product of his own ‘wishful thinking.
