An Encouraging Word

Introduction

When Vickie and I were first married, we lived in a little shack of a house that sat in front of the cemetery.

I told her it was the perfect place because she could have fresh flowers every day. She was not amused.

What was strange about this cemetery was the entrance. You would turn off the street onto the entrance and it was there I saw one of the overstatements of my life.

There was a sign that read “Dead End.” If there ever was a sign that was true it was that one.

The problem with Christianity is sometimes we feel like we are headed into that cemetery…we are living and living and living but never know if we are on the right track.

Are we making progress? Are we even going in the right direction?

We read the Bible but don’t know for sure.

For John, he doesn’t want us to feel like that. He wants us to put down some stakes in the ground that mark our progress bu also some warning flashers on how to keep from getting sidetracked.

The Progress Made

Have you been frustrated by “not quite yet” situations?

Perhaps you are in school and you get a 90, but your teacher says, “if you try a little harder, maybe you can do better.”

So you do, and you move the marker to a 95. A friend says, “I bet if you did extra credit, you could do better.”

Do you feel exhausted or exhilarated? Discouraged or encouraged?

Or suppose you are running a race. As you near the finish line, officials come, pull up the stakes and move the finish line farther away. You keep running and they keep moving the finish line. How long before you just quit?

Some live a Christianity of frustration. They do well but…and a little voice tells us “not good enough.” Our Puritan backgrounds are always commanding “do better.”

The truth of the gospel can be summed up in the simple phrase “you will never be good enough.”

It was true about John’s time. The knowers were preaching a gospel of inferiority. Since you don’t have the secret, since you are not one of the illumined ones, one of the keepers of the secret knowledge, you are worth nothing. It takes a special status, one that you cannot attain.

As if attainment is the issue. Isn’t a life lived for Christ the standard? A life that reflects faith in God and mirrors the love of Christ for the world?

How does John handle this spiritual putdowns?

He addresses the church. He decides it is time to break into the conversation. He has held them up to high standards—obedience to the will of God and the same love Jesus had. But at the same time, he wants to keep them from growing discouraged.

So, he speaks. As John Stott said of this passage, his purpose in writing is as much to confirm the right assurance of genuine Christians as to rob the counterfeit of their false assurance.

So John frames this attaboy with six statements. Whether the words are “I am writing” or “I have written” apply to pen on parchment here, the intent is clear. I am writing to bolster you in the face of withering criticism.

Listen to him as he cares for the souls of believers.

1 John 2:12–14 NIV

I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

He speaks to three groups, children, young men, and old men. It is not whether you crawl on the carpet or creep with a cane that John addresses. Instead, he speaks of the spiritual states we all pass through.

For some, they toddle in the halls of God’s kingdom. Then, there is the age in which sinew is strong and enthusiasm is fiery. They do a lot…even more than is prudent. But then, wisdom dawns. The strength of youth is replaced by the leavening of experience.

All of us, no matter which birthday you celebrated, needs to hear John’s small interruption. For in it, is the personal plea of a spiritual father.

And to them, John writes of accomplishment through the tense used. It is not a process but a finished event, something that has come true, not just coming true.

Sins are erased through the power and authority of Jesus. They make no atonement for sin. Jesus has done that and God has brought them into his family. They gather around the throne as the forgiven, not as beggars looking for a crumb of mercy.

They have come to know him, to have that close and intimate relationship with God the father. It is not the intellectual snobbery of their opponents but of those who are close to the Father.

And they are the ones who have conquered the evil one. Their lives have fought the battle with evil and they have prevailed. They resisted evil and stood firm for truth.

But one small detail. Some flex muscle and say, “see what I have done.” In gyms across the world, there are always those people who admire themselves in mirrors as they constrict biceps into a bulge. They grunt with every lift so people will notice them.

But their spiritual strength comes not from their training, but is from another source. It comes from the “word of God that lives in you.” They have incorporated the will of God and the words of the eternal. They are their guides, their diets, and their protection. Without the word they are nothing.

For most of the religious world the enemy of great strength is the word “better.” I will do “better.” I will improve. I will work harder at this.

The psalmist snuffs that out.

Psalm 119:9 NIV

How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.

He doesn’t want us to do better. He says it is living according to his word.

In fact, John lays out three gifts.

The gift of forgiven sin

The gift of a growing relationship with God.

The strength to overcome.

All are not spiritual attainments born from our good efforts. They are God’s gifts provided to faithful children.

But the problem with the gifts of God, we seem to think we have arrived and we are immune.

The Looming Danger

The story is told of the Swiss chalet in Alps. At morning a group of enthusiastic tourists were ready for a climb to the summit.

They started off with vim and vitality and made it halfway up the mountain. There, about lunch time was a rest stop.

In it the cook had prepared a hearty stew. A fire blazed in the fireplace. Comfortable chairs encircled it. The warmth of the room and soup and conversation gave a splendid rest to the weary.

Then, after lunch, it was time to climb some more, this time to the summit. But it happened with every group. A few rose from their easy chairs and finished the climb. The others stayed comfortable and never went any further.

John praises them for what their lives had become but knew there was more climbing to do.

And there was a major roadblock in their way.

John calls it “the world.”

1 John 2:15 NIV

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

“Be careful,” says John. With six more mentions of “the world” John points out the poison of the world.

But what is the “world?

We used to have a word in the church called “worldly.” And we tried to define it. A dance in a school gym. A cigarette dangling from a lip. Those were worldly things. Keep the list and you are not worldly.

The problem with lists is they are never correct. They define behavior without values. They fall short of the mark and have numerous escape clauses built into them.

And most of the time, they are for the young.

But John wants to talk about the world…six times he talks of it. And what is this world?

It could be terra firma, the globe hurdling through space on its 365 day journey. But it doesn’t make sense to think that we should be wary of the ground we plant our feet on.

Instead, John refers to a system of life attuned to the basest human and animal senses. It is satisfying urges rather than pursing purpose. The world coaxes away from God and never points toward him. It preaches human potential and dismisses silly guilt-ridden talk.

We are caught in this dilemma. Sin has been banished and self-fulfillment is the graven image. Make yourself something. Stand on your own two feet. Do what you think is right and don’t let any of those religious types tell you what to do.

And while we are at it, let the internet guide you, not some old book that is hard to read. Skim headlines, don’t dive deep. If it feels good, do it.

The slogans of our time from Greed is Good, to Be The Best You Possible are the world’s exhalations.

And John says we make choice. We assign affection to the world or God but not both. As Jesus said, “no one can serve two masters.”

Sometimes, it appears that scripture argues with itself. After all, think of the golden text of the Bible, emblazoned on banners in end zones.

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world….” But the same John who wrote that says here “do not love the world.” Is this schizophrenic thinking? Love the world but don’t love the world?

John emphasizes something different here. In fact, it is easy to untie this Gordian knot. God went to great lengths to redeem this evil world. But Christians should not embrace its message and its desires. God wants to change it and man wants to marry it. It’s not the same.

The reason is simple. God doesn’t allow us to have spiritual mistresses, something on the side that excites us and takes our attentions away. John hates a spectrum of modern thought. You either love God or you love the world. Decide who you are wedded to. And then give your life to them.

But the world is a big place. Do we move to the desert to rid ourselves of the world? The world’s talons are not geographic but more like Christmas fudge for the dieter. It entices and draws him away from God.

John sums up the entire arsenal of the world to tear us from God’s grasp.

1 John 2:16 NIV

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.

While we have defined these in other series, suffice it to say that these are traits which assumes I as a human being knows better than God. I can have what I see, enjoy any titillation without consequence, and wield control over my own life.

C. H. Dodd puts it, is ‘the tendency to be captivated by outward show.” It shows off the things money, time, and prestige buys that are destined for Goodwill one day.

William Barclay noted, “the men and women of the world are people who judge everything by their own appetites, the slaves of lavish ostentation, boastful braggarts who try to make themselves out to be far more important than they really are.”

We are captivated by these things. We are drawn to good feelings and pleasant sights. Eve saw the fruit and what it stood for. It was the twinkle in Herod’s eye as he watched Siloam’s seductive saunter that cost John his head. The thief steals because he sees what he wants. The eye is the gate through which desire tiptoes.

David closed the door to his room once Bathsheba had entered. Potiphar’s wife grabbed a handful of Joseph’s coat. Such is the flesh. It caresses and smooths. And with it, nerves relax and its opiate enticement deadens us to sin.

Then there is this pride, this boasting. It seeks to impress. It’s Moses swinging a staff at a rock to prove he can get water out of it. It is Herod taking in the accolades of the Jews, only to topple off the chair and break his neck. It is the desire to be someone special.

Wasn’t it Somerset Maugham who said, “The most deeply ingrained, the most deeply rooted instinct in civilized humanity is the desire for the approval of other people"?

For us, I can do with my time what I will. I control my calendar. I can spend my money on what my heart wants. I earned it. It is mine. I can ignore law and precaution because I am free. In fact, the pride of life likes to whisper that phrase in our ears. “You are free to do as you please.”

But as John insists, these are the dying embers of a dying age.

1 John 2:17 NIV

The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

It’s passing away. Jesus stabbed the heart and now the world and its desires are bleeding profusely.

It is fading from view and power. And those who live for the world are getting into their own coffin.

In Acts 27, Paul advises seasoned sailors about shipwrecks. Get off now or be doomed. They tried to hold on to the ship but had to leave in order to be saved.

We too must jettison the lifestyles of the world, the prestige others give us, the unbridled pleasure, the accumulation of wealth and admiration because it is a sinking ship. Those who live don’t hold on.

Why would we want to live for something that is passing away?

Conclusion

So John takes a breather to put his arms around his children and bolster their faith.

He takes us to a vista where we stand and look back at the path where we have come. And, he points to another path, the one ahead and says, “there’s a tough trail coming.”

If we were reading John’s letter as he sat beside us, he might say, “now don’t miss this. This is important.” What might that be?

He might point out, “look what God has accomplished in your life?’ Too many times, we don’t stop fretting long enough to compare life as it was with life as it is. What is the value of forgiveness to you? Or the ability to overcome evil and temptation in the moment? Or the peace that comes from a relationship with God?

We talk of them as concepts but unless you bring them in, cherish them, and constantly give thanks to God for the journey so far, you will never last in Christianity very long. The path is just too hard.

Stop and notice what God has done for your life.

But John would point to something else. “Be careful…the world constantly dangles its lure before you. Don’t grow complacent.”

Whether we like it or not, the world surrounds us. Media bombards our minds with messages of our material needs and the titillating images that shout “you need to feel good all the time.”

How many times are we told, “you are in control of your life. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do…be your own man.”

All tenderly caress our souls as they cut our throats.

We don’t need what is sold. We only need the God who is leading us. And don’t confuse the two because one has the past while the other holds the future.

We do this by keeping both of these in our minds. Awareness must be constant.

As a sentry on the perimeter of a base in Afghanistan, we must always be vigilant. The devil never sleeps. But remember, neither does the Lord.

John has one central comparison—that which is passing away and that which is living forever.

Have you faced that issue?

Over the past several years, the Western United States has been torched by fires. Vickie and I have friends who have fled from the flames at a moments notice.

The question at moments like that is “what do you take?” It clarifies what is truly important to you.

Some have fifteen minutes. Others have fifteen seconds. Now…what’s important?

It has been studied.

A musician opted for the violin. A golfer grabbed his clubs. A bride-to-be remembered her dress. Many dived for the practical—toiletries and clothes. Others fumbled though boxes and old photo albums, desperate to save memories.

One woman grabbed diapers, wipes, and clothes for her kids, but nothing for herself. An 82-year-old woman grabbed her walker and—of all things—a hairbrush, but forgot her husband's thyroid medication.

As Tonia Whitaker, 31, sat with her kids on a blanket in the corner of the Petaluma Community Center shelter, her voice quivered as she went down a list of things that could currently be in flames: sonograms, her children's first teeth, their umbilical cords, the new bike her older son recently got for his seventh birthday, and all of his unopened presents.

At least one man, 57-year-old Michael Dornbach, died refusing to leave something behind. "I'm not leaving without my truck," Dornbach told his nephew, who begged him to flee without the vehicle.

It all comes down to what you love? And John ask that question, “what exactly do you love the most?”