The Darkness Is Passing Away

Introduction

<<PRAY>> <<READ 7-11>>

Review? Connection to Sermon on the Mount?

Last week - vv3-6, “A Confident Decree” - God’s love perfected in the one who keeps His word. Commandments - v6 - <<READ 2:6>> - saved sinners follow Jesus. Imperfectly? Yes. But they follow.

Today - zeroes in on a specific commandment, but I want to draw your attention to verses 7-11 as a whole for a moment. Notice that even though John mentions the old / new commandment, at this point, he doesn’t actually give it as a command. He hasn’t said, “Love your brothers and sisters in Christ.” Now that’s coming later. If we jump too quickly to the command, to the imperative, then we’ll miss out on what John is actually saying here. There’s a stiff warning in verses 9 and 11 to help us identify false teaching, but they’re surrounded by even more of John’s words of assurance for believers. Turning a promise into a command is like biting into a bran muffin when you thought it was a cupcake. So we’re going to make sure we let John’s words of encouragement and warning do their job before we get to the specific commands later in the book.

So, before we dive in, the Gospel context -

John 13:34–35 ESV

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

@ beginning of a section with repeated focus on keeping His commands. “If you love me, you will keep my commands” (14:15). We know that the apostles continue to fail and flounder - even Peter and John. Years later, Peter still has to be rebuked when his behavior contradicted the Gospel.

“If you love me, you will keep my commands” is not a threat, but a promise. Those who love Him will recognize and treasure His voice, and will not reject them.

Today, John is going to give us another reason to hope in Christ:

Q. How does the “old / new commandment” help us have confidence in Christ?

I. Christ Keeps the Command (vv7-8)

<<READ 7-8>>

Last week, in verses 3-6, we saw a key diagnostic that distinguished John and the true Christians from the pretenders - those who belong to Jesus will keep His commands - they will guard His Word as the word of life.

I said: “the way to know that we have known Him, and they have not, is simple: Who keeps His commands? And who rejects them?”

We saw in verse 5 that what Jesus finished in the Cross, He now demonstrates in all who keep His Word. His perfect love for us comes to its intended goal in His love through us.

In verses 7-8, John starts with yet another term of affection and confidence. In 2:1, he called his readers “little children,” and now he calls them - and us - “beloved.” For John, you are his beloved if you are Christ’s beloved.

And the commandment he will focus on here and to the end of the letter, is summed up in verse 10 - whoever loves his brother abides in the light.

Verses 7-8 tell us that in one sense, the commandment is old, and in another sense, it is new.

"I’m writing you no new commandment” means it didn’t come from John’s brain. This is another way to distinguish the Gospel from pretenders. The pretenders invented new doctrines, twisted Scripture or just plain ignored it, and deceived people with super-spiritual sounding language that came out of their own imaginations.

But John says that this old commandment is what his readers had from the beginning - the word that they heard.

And if you’ve been noting every time John says “beginning,” you’ll notice that this is how John started his letter in chapter 1:1-5. Not with the word that they heard, but the word that John heard and then proclaimed to his readers. Yet again, John is saying that his message to them is none other than the message of eternal life that Jesus Himself proclaimed. What John heard, he proclaimed, and now we have it.

So what did John hear from Jesus? What is the old commandment that is also new?

John 13:34–35 ESV

34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

If you remember way back in our Kingdom People series on the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 5, we saw how Jesus came not to abolish, but to fulfill the Old Testament Law.

We said that Jesus fulfilled the Law by embodying the promises of Scripture, by doing God’s commands, and by His teaching about the Law. Do you remember that?

The Pharisees and scribes had taken God’s Word and turned it on its head, and emptied it of its meaning. Jesus fulfilled the Law, He filled it back up, when He taught that the center of the Law was love for God and love for neighbor.

“You have heard that it was said...”

QUOTE FROM 11/1/2019 - The Torah, what we call the Law, is the story and standard of God’s covenant with Israel. The heart of the Covenant, the heart of the Law, is reconciled relationships. Shalom. Peace with God and peace with man.

So when Jesus said “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another,” the love part wasn’t new - it was the heart of the Law all along. What was new was that Jesus fulfilled the Law in its totality by His atoning death on the cross as the propitiation for our sins. That had never been done before. Ever.

And He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you.” For the first time, the heart of the Law is not only proclaimed, but accomplished and proclaimed.

But it’s not just accomplished and proclaimed by Jesus. John says “it’s true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.”

We’re going to come back to this verse in a couple weeks - verse 8 is our theme verse for the series - but just quickly, see how John uses the word “true.” The commandment is true in Jesus and in you. It’s demonstrable. It’s genuine. It’s true.

The TRUE Light is the genuine light, Jesus, the light to which all created light points. The Commandment has been true in Him from all eternity, because in Him is no darkness at all. But something absolutely unprecedented happened in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Commandment was never true in us until His light shone in us.

Jesus says in

John 14:23 ESV

23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

The True Light struck the murderous Paul blind and called him out of darkness and into His marvelous light. And the New Commandment came true in Paul because Jesus, the True Light, was in him.

Every time someone hears the Good News of Jesus Christ, and turns to Him in faith, the darkness is passing away. Ever since Jesus started calling sinners to eternal life, the true light has been shining.

The old commandment is new because He has accomplished it, proclaimed it, and has made it true in us, because he dwells in those who believe in Him.

1 John 4:15–16 ESV

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

The commandment is true in you who believe, because the God who issued and kept the command abides in you.

Look with me at verses 9-11 and our second point:

II. The Command Exposes the Truth (vv9-11)

John makes another sharp distinction here.

ILLUST: Half-moon - from earth, we look and see what looks like a straight line down the center of the moon - half in the light, half in the dark.

Astronomers have a name for the line that separates the light from the dark - it’s called the terminator.

John says that if you claim to be in the light but you hate your brother, by which he means your fellow Christian, you’re not actually in the light. You’re on the wrong side of the terminator.

And he says that love for your brother demonstrates that you abide in the light.

There’s no middle ground, no neutrality. We can’t say, “I don’t exactly love my brother, but I don’t “hate” him. I’m indifferent.” John has a response to that:

1 John 3:17 ESV

17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

Last week, we saw that the distinction in verses 3-6 was not between obedience and disobedience, but between keeping and despising God’s commands. Today, we see the distinction between loving and hating God’s people. Those who despise or reject Jesus’s words do not know Him. Those who hate God’s people do not know Him. The true light isn’t in them.

There’s two important things that come out of this. The first has to do with the meaning of love and hate. The second has to do with what we do about it.

Jesus gives the example and demonstration of love in the cross.

John 15:13 ESV

13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

His love is perfect, complete, faithful, steadfast. When His love is most perfected in us, our love looks most like His. But John doesn’t say “whoever doesn’t perfectly love his brother is still in the dark.” He says, “whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in the dark.”

John tells us in chapter 1 that true Christians have fellowship with God and with one another, and they are forgiven because of the blood of Jesus, and chapter 2 tells us that they keep Christ’s commands. But false Christians reject fellowship with believers. They despise the words of Christ and abandon the brethren. Their hearts are closed to God’s people because the true light isn’t in them.

Once again, John wants you to see, when you’re surrounded by groups and people claiming to know God, to have spiritual insight, to have some truth to give you, how are you supposed to know who to listen to?

And the terminator here is love for God’s people. Anyone who claims to have something to teach you about spirituality or morality or God, but rejects the people of God, is still in the dark. And this is especially important because of what John says about the one who loves and the one who hates.

III. The Disaster of Walking in Darkness (vv10-11)

<<READ 10-11>>

Have you ever tried to find your way off an unfamiliar porch in complete darkness? Something that might be trivial in the light can become very risky in the dark. This kind of stumbling isn’t like tripping on a rock and stubbing your toe. This is talking about a disastrous fall.

Have you ever gone on a trust walk? <<DESCRIBE>> - The person at the front, the guide, is not blindfolded. All relies on the sight of the leader. But imagine what would happen if the leader were blindfolded.

In Matthew 15 and 23, Jesus says that this is exactly what the scribes and Pharisees were like. He calls them “Blind guides,” who lead the people astray. He says that if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. And yet, they so confidently proclaim that they know the way. Jesus hits on just the right word for them - he calls them “hypocrites.”

They don’t know where they are going, and yet they keep walking.

This is the person who leads others off a cliff. They don’t have to find a cliff, they take it with them everywhere they go. The cause for stumbling is in them, because Jesus isn’t.

The message of verse 11 is not to get you to worry about whether you’re in the dark or not. The message is: Do not follow those who hate the people of God.

Right now, it’s sorta popular to entertain some kind of idea of Christianity, with no regard for belonging to Christ’s Body. But if anyone tells you that they can belong to Christ and have no regard for Christ’s Body, then they are blind and in the dark.

1 John 1:7 ESV

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

To put it another way, if someone tells you that the Body of Christ is not essential, they are blind guides who do not know Jesus.

IV. The Delight of Walking in Love (v10)

On the other hand, the message of verse 10 fits together perfectly with what we saw last week: Saved sinners follow Jesus. They’re saved, so they follow. They fail, they flail, they flounder, but they follow, because His love is at work in them.

Today, John adds another confident decree about those who have been saved:

The Body of Christ loves one another, because the true light is already shining.

Here’s where that promise comes in:

Do you know someone who loves like Jesus because His light is shining in them? Take a moment to think about it. Do you know someone like that?

I do. I’m surrounded by them on Sunday mornings. There are people in this room today who sewed pajamas for kids they don’t know because Jesus saved them. The evidence is on that back table in the lobby.

You don’t know this, but there are people in this room who helped a single mom make ends meet this week, because Jesus saved them.

We have brothers and sisters here in this room who volunteer significant amounts of time to provide Biblical counseling for people who need God’s help in working through the difficulties of life, and all because of the love that Jesus has poured into their hearts.

Have any of them done this so perfectly as our Lord? Absolutely not. But they have been shaped by Christ’s love.

DELIGHT: <<Walking together = freedom and safety = joy in love for one another>>

Ephesians 5:1–2 ESV

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

You can walk in confidence when you walk with those shaped by Christ’s love.