The Message of Life & Its Moral Implications
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Series 1 John
The Message of Life & Its Moral Implications
1 John 1: 1 – 2:2
Scenes in passage:
1/ The word of life. 1:1 – 4
2/ Sin breaks our fellowship with God. 1:5 – 7
3/ Sin exists in our nature. 1:8 – 9
4/ Sin shows itself in our conduct. 1:10 – 2:2
Main theme of passage:
God is light there is no evil in him, if we are in fellowship with God we to will walk in the light and not in darkness.
Main preaching theme:
We can not escape the moral implications of the message of life.
Main preaching Intention:
I believe that 5 people will look afresh at their lives and their walk with the Lord and will submit to Christ’s Lordship and walk in obedience to him in a fresh way.
Sermon Scenes:
1/ The Background to John’s letters & the implications for today. Spiritual life is good and pure, Physical life is evil. Same Problem today different name.
2/ The message John Preached. The logos, God incarnate. 1:1 - 4
3/ The deception, 1:5 – 2:2
Some claimed to have arrived at Spiritual life & therefore not affected by sin, a physical problem.
4/ The trap today. Some claim to have achieved holiness, others treat sin as not a big deal. Others think of Jesus in the wrong way, as somehow different from us and above the problems we face. In either case, the effects of sin are minimized.
5/ The fact is Jesus has dealt with our sin and has turned aside God’s wrath. He is our advocate. If we will only deal honestly with God and ourselves then we can have forgiveness & freedom. 2:1 – 2:2.
Scene 1/
We often get worked up and concerned about false teachings and strange ideas that pervade our modern society.
We often fall into the trap of focusing on these things and letting them overwhelm us with worry and concern.
We often forget that the New Testament church faced similar problems.
Yet they thrived & grew although they were under attack from every side.
We need to hear how they dealt with the challenges they faced, so that we can be strengthened and get on with the job as they did.
Towards the end of the first century, the aging apostle John was located in the city of Ephesus.
He was the last surviving apostle and would often travel to many surrounding cities and towns to care for the churches.
As the last surviving apostle he was greatly respected and spoke with authority.
We have in the gospel of John & his first letter his authoritative defense of the church from a new & growing heresy.
This heresy would pose a major threat to the church over the next 200 years.
This heresy is called Gnosticism.
A pagan religious ideology that saw all matter as evil and spirit as entirely good.
It had developed out of the pagan & Greek dualistic view of the world.
The outworking of this error resulted in a number of beliefs, which threatened Christianity.
Firstly man’s body is made of matter & is therefore evil.
This is contrasted with God who is spirit and entirely good.
Salvation is seen as escape from the physical realm of the body.
This salvation is not dependent of Christ but on a special gnosis or knowledge.
Concerning the doctrine of the incarnation, Jesus being fully God and fully man living here on earth there were two views.
One view called Docetism held that Christ only seemed to have a body.
The other view held that the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at his Baptism when the dove came down & left him in the Garden before his crucifixion.
All of this grew out of the idea that the spiritual, which is good, could not inhabit the physical, which was evil.
The moral outworking of this heresy was twofold.
On the one hand, the body was treated harshly because it was evil and any pleasure was avoided.
This lead to all sorts of denials, including ones marital duties to ones spouse.
On the other hand, this dualism led to licentiousness.
Since matter is evil and spiritually these people thought they had arrived, because of their secret knowledge.
It did not matter what you did with the body as Spiritually they had all that mattered.
It is this outworking of the heresy that is attacked by the Apostle John in his first Letter.
I believe this first letter of John has much to teach us today.
I still hear people talk as if the physical life we lead is somehow lacking.
I still hear people talk as if Jesus was somehow above all the suffering and temptation that we face, when in reality he suffered and was tempted just as we are.
I still sometimes hear people talk about physical pleasure as somehow evil.
I still often hear people separate the working life from the spiritual life.
As if we are compartmentalized as people when in fact the Scriptures see us a whole person physically & spiritual as a unity not as separate parts.
Move 2/ John’s Message
Against all this incorrect and dangerous belief, John preached a powerful message.
Let’s look at the 1 John 1:1
1 We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life.
John’s message is this!
The Logos the word is God incarnate and he has not only seen, but he has heard and he has touched it.
This Logos is life and belief in him brings eternal life.
John sees his task as proclaiming this life to all and specifically to proclaiming it in defense of the church.
Verse 1 tells us that this word of life was from the beginning; that is eternal.
John along with the other apostles has heard this word of life.
He has seen it and he has touched it.
The eternal has entered time and become physical.
In marked contrast to the heretics, John is saying that his task is to proclaim the gospel.
The historical manifestation of the eternal.
In verse 2 John is saying plainly, that what he has seen and heard is nothing other than eternal life.
The word of life was with the Father and has appeared to John and many others.
In verse 3 and 4, we find the purpose of this appearing.
It is so that those John writes to may have fellowship, not only with him but also with God.
In four verses John sweeps across history and unfolds God’s purpose from eternity to eternity.
From that which was from the beginning to the fullness of joy experienced by Christian believers, which will not be finally consummated until the end.
Move 3/ John’s message is in stark contrast to the message of the Gnostics.
In verse 5, John outlines the basic difference between the heretics and the historic gospel message.
It is a contrast between light and dark.
Between perfection and evil.
In this one comprehensive statement that God is light John has summed up the entire nature of God and dismissed the heretics.
John Stott puts it this way.
The miserable errors of the heretics were due to their ignorance of God’s ethical self – revelation as light.
They could never have laid claim to a private, esoteric knowledge into which they had been initiated if their conception of God had been of one who is light.
In whom there is no secrecy, no hiding in the shadows.
Moreover, if God is also light in the sense of possessing an absolute moral perfection, their claim to know him and have fellowship with him despite their indifference to morality is seen to be sheer nonsense.
In the next few verses, John sets about demolishing the argument of the heretics that they have arrived and are therefore free to live as they please.
He does so by firstly using their own statements to show the contradiction of their words with their actions.
In verses, 6 & 7 the heretics claim to have fellowship with God.
Because of their superior spiritual state they claim that physically they do not have to live good lives.
They have already arrived.
John destroys their argument for the foolishness it is and then goes on in verse 7 to show the logic of true religion.
If we truly walk with God, we will reflect his character.
This results in fellowship and ongoing forgiveness / cleansing from sin.
The next claim of the heretics is worse than the first.
Verse 8 tells us they claimed to be without sin, that is, free from any inherited sin or self-centeredness.
John’s answer is straight to the point.
They have deceived even themselves.
Again, in verse 9 John, presents the counter claim,
Rather than claiming to be without sin, true religion is to admit our sins and seek God’s forgiveness so that we can be cleansed and released from the hold sin has over us.
There is an incredible freedom that comes from being honest with ourselves and with God.
Unfortunately, the heretics once again, in verse 10, have missed the boat.
Not only have they claimed to be without sin but they also claim that they have not sinned.
That because of their superior enlightenment they are incapable of sinning.
John’s rebuke is simple, “God has declared that all have sinned and fall short of his glory, how dare you call God a liar by saying this applies to everyone except you.”
Move 4/ The same errors exist today - just with a more simplistic denial of reality
We face the same threats today as John did back then.
The same errors exist but often with a more simplistic denial of reality.
It is not uncommon for people to claim fellowship with God yet see no need to go to the cross of Christ for forgiveness or afterward to live a consistently moral life.
Many claim a mystical intimacy with God.
But do not live a life marked by light.
As John Stott says, religion without morality is an illusion.
We face people who claim sinless perfection.
That they have somehow arrived.
I have met people like this.
In fact, I get the feeling that some Pastor’s and a few elders I have known think they have arrived.
The truth of the matter is that no Christian has arrived.
We are all sinners saved only by the grace of God.
As far as I am concerned, anyone who says other wise is an arrogant fool.
We face many denials of sin in the world today.
For many sin is no great deal, it is of little consequence as long as you don’t get caught.
Let me ask you, how honest were you with your tax return?
Or do you always tell your spouse the truth about your whereabouts?
Others see Jesus as a free ticket to heaven, without the ethical requirements to live according to his teachings.
Yes I am saved by the blood of Christ and I can enter into a worship experience, in fact, I can lead a prayer meeting but then do as one couple, I knew.
Go and sleep together, or in their case spend several months living together in his parents bed whilst they were overseas.
Still others think of Jesus as somehow above and beyond us in his earthly existence.
He did not sin but we always will.
The truth of the matter is that Jesus was in every way tempted as we are yet was without sin.
Move 5/ 1 John 2:1-2
1 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
We can live consistently according to Jesus teachings, yes we will sometimes fail, but he has assured us of his help and his forgiveness when we do blow it.
If you will look at 1st John chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 you will see what I mean.
Here we read of a balance.
Verse 1 “I write this to you so that you will not sin.”
That is to be our aim and can become the consistent walk of our lives.
Notice I did not say absolute; because every one of us gets it wrong at least every day.
Well I do!
If you don’t believe me ask my wife.
John’s point is that we are not to be too lenient so as to encourage sin, nor to harsh so as to refuse forgiveness and restoration when we fall.
Jesus is the one who speaks to the Father in our defense.
He is our advocate; the Greek word is Paraclete.
The same word used of the Holy Spirit.
Just as the Holy Spirit is Christ’s advocate here on earth, pleading the cause of the gospel before a hostile world.
So, Jesus is our Advocate in heaven pleading our cause before our accuser Satan and to our Father who loves and forgives his children.
The Father is not now to be regarded as our judge.
Because we have now entered into the heavenly family, but as our Father from whom we need to seek forgiveness.
Forgiveness which will be freely given because Christ has by virtue of his righteousness cleansed us from all our unrighteousness.
The righteous Savior has saved us, who in our unrighteousness where totally undeserving.
You see we deserve death for our sin.
God in his holiness can not and will not look upon sin without pouring out his righteous anger.
His righteous anger or wrath is specifically directed at sin.
When Jesus stands before the Father he does not claim, mitigating circumstances as we might do in a court of law.
There are no statements such as, “ he really didn’t know what he was doing, he had a bad childhood.”
There are no excuses in heaven.
Jesus says yes they are guilty.
But then he holds out his arms and says; “I have paid the price”
Jesus has paid the price for our sin.
He is the atoning sacrifice or the propitiation for our sins.
The whole idea of propitiation is the turning aside of God’s wrath,
His righteous anger against our sin.
Jesus has stood in our place and he himself has taken the punishment we deserve.
Rather than leaving the world to find its own way out of the penalty of sin, a task we could never have accomplished, God has stepped in and taken our place.
You see we can not escape the moral implications of the message of life.
If we will only deal honestly with ourselves and with God then we can have forgiveness & freedom.
