Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction:

Christmas is coming, and certainly we all are familiar with the Christmas story.

You know that baby Jesus came over about 2000 years ago to fulfill the promise of the Messiah from YHWH.

You know that prophecy was spoken and fulfilled considering the details and the manner in which Jesus came.

You know how the angel Gabriel told a humble Mary that she would give birth to a boy that she was to name Jesus.

You also know the meager estate into which Jesus, in flesh, entered this human world: The stable, among shepherds, with a multitude of angels praising and singing to YHWH.

you already know about an extraordinarily bright star that was provided by YHWH to lead a group of wise men to where Jesus was staying.

And somewhere along these years, you’ve likely heard about King Herod’s sentiments to this new born King.

It is with confidence that I can say you know the Christmas story already.

But does it follow that if you know the Christmas story so well, that you already know Jesus just as well?

Do your really know the Son?

Transition:

Let’s back up a step.

How do we know if we really know God?

We live in a day when many people are not even slightly interested in really knowing God.

They want to live like they want as being their own gods.

To sincerely know God is the furthest thing purposely from their minds.

And don’t try to argue them to Christ, because they’ll find a way to justify their sin!

Someone once wisely said, “It isn’t the things we know that gets us into trouble.

It’s the things we know for sure that do.”

This is an immensely important spiritual issue because if God really exists, then those who reject Him will be accused of the one and only unpardonable sin, rejecting, and therefore, blaspheming God.

They will never really know what real love is.

They will not know of the abundance of a rich and full life both now and eternally.

If we don’t know God, we will miss out on everything that God meant life to be.

We will never really know what we’ve been created for.

For all those who reject God, they must know that the day will come when they will have to stand before God and confront His holiness and justice face-to-Face.

They will have to endure His judgment.

So we must know God.

But how can we tell if we really know God? John addresses one sure way that we can be confident in that answer:

Scripture Reading:

John could not be any clearer on this answer!

There are no analogies here, no similes, no metaphors.

We cannot justify some ambitious, ambiguous allegorical interpretation here.

There are absolutely no grammatical markers that suggest anything except a natural, literal interpretation.

It is fair to say this is pretty black and white.

James spent the whole second half of the first chapter on the topic of walking in the light.

So now he introduces another element of walking in the light: a “light walk” involves obedience.

Transition:

So with no room for debate on which hermeneutical stance to take, let’s now move to the exegesis or the words of this morning’s text.

These words deal primarily with two intertwined theological topics: Belief and Obedience

I. Belief (v.3-4)

In this and the following verses we see that a healthy relationship with God is contingent on obedience to His commands and imitation of Christ (2:3–6) and that personal proof of a relationship with God is obedience.

It is near impossible to obey if belief is absent.

Consider human authority.

It’s really hard for a child to obey his parents if he doesn’t believe that the parents have the ability / the means / the desire to keep the child accountable or the ability to follow through.

An example of this might be:

The mother and father of a teenage girl allows the boy to stay home alone for a couple hours in order to do Christmas shopping and while they are gone, the girl is given specific instructions not to have her neighbor friends over while they are gone.

This teenage girl might recognize that her parents couldn’t possibly be able to know if the friends were over for just about a half hour (no belief in the accountability).

This teenage girl might recall previous times of disobedience when the parents “let her off the hook” then (no belief in the desire and follow through).

And perhaps as she’s thinking these things through, her friends are at the door knocking.

Maybe this girl has a great relationship with our Lord and will still obey, but how much harder would it be to obey if she had no belief in her parents abilities, and especially no belief in her accountability to God.

“By this we know we have come to know Him” More literally this is “we know that we have known Him.”

This is emphasizing that the Christians of these problem churches can have the full assurance of their salvation.

The word “know” is used in its Hebrew sense of personal relationship (as in Jeremiah.

1:5)

and its Greek sense of facts about something or someone.

Henry Donald Spence wrote that This knowledge is no mere intellectual apprehension, such as these false teachers proposed, but a moral and spiritual affection and activity.

It is possible to know and hate.

Again, the knowledge is not a mere emotional appreciation.

Christianity knows nothing of piety without morality.

To know Christ is to love him, and to love him is to obey and imitate him.

back to our 1 John passage:

The emphases in this phrase are:

we can know God;

we can know what He wants for our lives; and

we can know that we know!

(cf.

5:13).

One of the assurances of our relationship with God is revealed by our actions and motives (cf.

Matt.

7; James, I Peter).

This is a recurrent theme of I John (cf.

2:3, 5; 3:24; 4:13; 5:2, 13).

John’s writings use two Greek words for “know” (ginōskō and oida) often (27 times in five chapters) and synonymously.

There seems to be no discernable semantic distinction between these terms in Koine Greek.

The choice is purely stylistic.

It is also interesting that John does not use the intensified term epiginōskō.

John is writing to encourage believers as well as refute heresy.

The Gospel of John and I John use the terms for “know” more than any other of the books in the NT.

I John is a book of assurance based on knowledge of the gospel and commensurate lifestyle love and obedience

“if” This is a THIRD CLASS CONDITIONAL SENTENCE which means potential action.

“we keep His commandments” Notice the conditional element (PRESENT ACTIVE SUBJUNCTIVE).

The new covenant is unconditional as to God’s offer but conditional as to mankind’s repentant faith and obedient response (cf.

2:3–5; 3:22, 24; 5:2, 3; John 8:51–52; 14:15, 21, 23; 15:10; Rev. 2:26; 3:8, 10; 12:17; 14:12).

One of the evidences for true conversion is obedience to Light (both Jesus and the gospel).

Even in the OT obedience was better than sacrificial ritual (cf. 1 Sam.

15:22; Jer.

7:22–23).

We know by keeping.

This verse explains this truth more clearly.

So who is saying this “I have come to know Him”?

“The one who says” Notice how John didn't use the word “We” because he is not going to identify with these false teachers.

This is one of several claims of the false teachers (cf.

1:6, 8, 10; 2:4, 6, 9).

This is what is called a diatribe (“the one who says …”), and we’ve seen this before: it’s similar to portions of the epistle of James.

The false teachers were claiming to know (PERFECT TENSE) God but were trying to separate salvation from lifestyle morality.

They claimed superior knowledge of God, but their lifestyles revealed their true motives.

“and does not keep His commandments” This is a PRESENT ACTIVE PARTICIPLE which speaks of habitual lifestyle action.

Our lives reveal our spiritual orientation.

Verse 4 expresses the truth negatively, while verse 5 expresses the same truth positively.

“is a liar” A liar does not have truth resident within him.

When John calls him a liar here, he is making a judgment statement about the person’s character.

He is not just lying to himself.

He is a kind of person, a liar.

John’s point in these two verses is that a person can claim knowledge (relationship), but the reality of that relationship is measured by obedience.