AF-S65-041005 1 John E
Alêtheia Christian Fellowship (Sermon 65, 04-10-05)
1 John is a microcosim of the entire Bible and as such it explains everything foundational to Christianity. Details and background information are found elsewhere. In this letter, John says, walk like Christ, and so we need the Gospels to know how Christ walked. We need the Old Covenant Books to know why Jesus came and what it means. We need the other New Covenant Books to understand the details and structure of our Theology, but right here in this tiny book you have all the requirements for a right relationship with your Creator. If, if, if, you do this book, you cannot fail!
The test of our religious experience is if it produces a reflection of Jesus Christ in our daily life.
What would Jesus do, is great, but the question is what would He do. That is the real test because so many claim to do what Jesus would do the real test is love.
Do you really love others as much as you love yourself?
John sets the record straight… There is no middle ground! No middle ground at all. It is either Truth or lies, light or dark, love or hate, fellowship or split and the end is either eternal life or eternal death.
1 John 2:15-17
NASB:Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (NLT “do not have the love of the Father in you”). For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
Love of the Father is a two-way street. Your love for Him and His Love in you. If you Love this world you do not love the Father and therefore you do not have the Father’s love in you, therefore you are not a Christian!
James 4:4 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.
Imperitive command: DO NOT….
What does it mean to love the world? Again it is being distracted from God’s plan and purpose and getting wrapped up in the temporal.
God knows you need to eat and sleep and make a living. God is not opposed to you enjoying yourself, in fact He desires you to enjoy Him and what He provides. There is a massive difference between seeking God first and seeking your own interest first.
You are either happy in God and then enjoy your surrondings or you are trying to fill that relationship void with other things.
Enjoyment of what God has provided in fellowship with God or seeking temporal things to make you happy.
It all boils down to your perception based on your faith. If your faith is non-existent you will seek your own happiness exclusively (which may benefit others), if it is weak you will play at religion, but you will hedge that bet by trying to enjoy what this world offers. If you have average faith you take Christianity seriously until it costs too much.
Are you willing to lose your prestige? Your job? Your friends? Your life? How about the lives of your family? If there is a point where you draw the line then you lack faith.
Those with mountain moving faith are so convinced of the Truth of the Bible that they place more concern for how their actions and reactions affect the future than they are about what takes place here.
These people will suffer abuse and loss here for their commitment to Christ willingly. These people will testify to God’s Love in any situation. These people are true Christians because they do not love this world they love God.
1- Lust of the flesh is the comforts and enjoyment and pleasures of this life taken at the expense of another, either God or your fellow man.
2- Lust of the eyes is the desire to have what you don’t already have.
3- Boastful pride of life is all that you tell others you have seen and done in order to impress and build yourself up into an object of worship.
The one who obeys will live forever beginning right now the world and it’s lusts are passing away for the faithful.
Our joy is in the Lord and our self esteem comes from understanding who we are and realizing we did nothing to accomplish it.
1 John 2:18-19
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of us; (NLT These people left our churches because they never really belonged with us) for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. (NLT When they left us, it proved that they do not belong with us)
Again an affectionate term, paidi>a, then the introduction of a new term.
Matthew 24:24 Jesus says there will arise many false Christs. yeudo>cristoi and now John coins a new word ajnti>cristoi. Anti really means against and in this context means in opposition to Christ.
Therefore, for this reason, we know the end has already arrived, we are in the last hour!
Therefore, for this reason, they proved or manifested the reality that they never were part of us.
John clearly states that those who left are antichrists. They oppose Christ and His Body. They are always looking to separate and destroy, split and ruin.
Do you think the churches John wrote to were perfect? Do you seriously believe they were any better than what we have right here, right now? Don’t deceive yourself! People are people in every generation, all you have to do is read what the Apostles write to the Christian community in the Bible and then if you want you can supplement that with the hundreds of letters the second and third generation leaders wrote. If anything there were more problems with the churches in the first century because very few people had been raised in Christianity, most people came from pagan or religious Jewish backgrounds.
John says those that broke fellowship were not only not Christians they were in fact anti-christians!
I can’t overemphasize enough, Christianity requires you to be part of a local church and do everything you can to put your own agenda aside and build up the other members in God’s Agapê.
1 John 2:20-24
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. (KJV know all things NLT know the truth) I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar (NLT great liar) but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
But, You are not like them because you have the Holy Spirit in you and so you know more than Truth you have experienced God.
The Holy Spirit testifies to the Truth and so I’m merely reminding you of what you already know. The Great liar Satan is the father of all liars and everyone who refuses to genuinely accept Jesus as the one and only path to the Father is of their father Satan, just as Jesus said:
John 8:42-47
42Jesus 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. 43“Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. 44“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45“But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. 46“Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? 47“He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”
An annointing from the Holy One is the other paraclete, the literal, living, Breath of God in you.
The Holy Spirit reveals Truth and it is only possible to recognize Truth if the Holy Spirit is in you.
1- The Truth is the Bible is perfect as we have it for God’s desire in you.
2- The Bible clearly teaches that there is one and only one path to Almighty God.
Many people scoff at these ideas and it is because they don’t have the Holy Spirit and they don’t have the Holy Spirit because they scoff.
1 John 2:25-29
This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.
The NLT says, “In this Fellowship we have eternal life as He promised.”
The whole concept is that those who seek God earnestly and honestly will find what they seek. It is a relationship and due to this relationship we can know God’s Truth through the action of the Holy Spirit.
Heaven is a relationship with God, if that kind of relationship is not your cup of tea right now then don’t whine about going into the lake of fire. Jesus calls it a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is complete absence of God just as you desired.
If you are genuinely saved you don’t need someone to tell you how it is, because God’s Spirit will teach you everything you need to know. Now that’s true if you cling or as John says abide in Him seeking Him and His will not your own.
Now John reiterates that they must abide, must cling and if they choose to abide then they will have no cause for shame.
Then He gives us a key, you know God is Righteous so then it follows that everyone trying to be righteous is a Christian.
To understand the key we have to understand the term, “righteous.”
Righteous literally means to be right di>kaio>v, evokes the concept of Justice therefore a just person is not under codemnation, they are alright with the other entity, government, court or in this case God.
To be righteous means that God holds nothing against you.
Well, hows that possible?
By His mercy based on His plan. So for the Christian today, just as with Father Abraham 4,000 years ago Righteousness is faith and faith alone.
Now just as with Abraham, if we really believe there will be evidence in our life that support that reality.
Are we perfect?