Believe It | Live It - Week 4 Purity

Anglican Church Noosa Believe It | Live It - 1 John 3 PURITY May 2, 2021 Rev’d Chris Johnson We are up to Week 4 in our series from 1 John “Believe it, Live it”, and today we are looking at Chapter 3 and the theme of Purity. Previous weeks we looked at light, obedience and truth. If you think those are unpopular topics in the world today what do you think about purity? The whole of 1 John is out of step with the world. This Epistle calls us to a new identity and way of being. It's like the world has been playing a tune and we have been happily dancing to it but then Jesus comes along playing much better music and we now decide to take up a new dance. The call to purity is a very different dance to what the world is jiving to. The call to purity is only mentioned once in this chapter and in fact it is the only time it is mentioned in the whole book. But a good case can be made that the whole book is a call to purity. This chapter specifically gives us three reasons for purity – 1. We are children of God 2. Jesus is returning and 3. Love It’s about faithfully conveying John's message and ultimately God’s message. 1. CHILDREN of GOD We should be pure because we are the children of God. What an incredible privilege it is to be called the children of God. Listen again to the way John expresses his amazement. Ch 3:1-2a See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! We should never lose our sense of amazement that we now have the status of being God's children and • All because of God's grace in the gospel • All because of what God has done in Jesus There is a popular idea in some circles that everyone is automatically God's child. There is certainly a sense in which God the Creator, is the Father who gives life to everyone. But the overwhelming message in the Bible and in John's writing is that the world has rejected God and people don’t want to be His children. The Bible's message is that all of humanity is rebellious and not willing to submit to God. There are a large number of people these days for whom it is offensive to suggest they are children of God. That's the last thing they want. There are some remnants of Christendom where nominal people have this vague idea of God as their Father but their understanding is probably only at the level of God as the overall Creator. Nothing like the intimacy of a relationship with God in Christ that the New Testament writers are 1 exuberant about. The Apostle John is certainly exuberant! He is incredulous that it should be possible. Look at v1 again, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” John understands that this is all a work of grace, undeserved, unmerited, unexpected. John knows that the natural human condition is to be --• cut off from God and • in spiritual death. John has a theology of spiritual birth that is necessary for a person to come alive to God and enter into an intimate relationship with God. It is in John's gospel that we get the story of Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night and being told that he must be born again. Jesus says “flesh gives birth to flesh but spirit gives birth to spirit”. We have a fleshly birth by our human parents but we also need a spiritual birth from above. • By the will of the Father, • through the work of the Son, his death and resurrection and • by the application of the Holy Spirit softening our hearts to God. The term born again isn't in John's epistle but the idea certainly is. On six occasions in the epistle John talks about being born of God. If you look at the verse at the end of Chapter 2, 2:29 says “If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.” Chapter 3:9 John says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; They cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and the children of the devil are.” It is interesting isn’t it that here John entertains the idea that people are children of the devil. Only those born of God are the children of God. Don't treat lightly the idea of being a child of God. It is not an automatic given. It is a gift of God's grace. It is lavished on us through the death of Christ on the cross to wipe away our sin. It is lavished on us through the work of the Holy Spirit softening our hearts to want to know God and live according to His righteousness. When we were running in the other direction God turned us around forgave our sin and brought us into his banqueting table as his children. If God has loved us that generously and lavishly then we should live pure lives to his glory. It's that simple. 2. JESUS RETURN The second reason we are to live a pure life, and the most obvious one in the passage, is that Jesus is returning. Second half of v2, “But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves just as he is pure.” The truth of Jesus’ return should keep us on the straight and narrow. If we believe • that one day he will appear, • that one day we will have to give an account of our life to him, then we should be highly motivated to live pure blameless lives. 2 It's like knowing there is a test or exam coming up - you put your head down and study diligently in order to be ready to give a good account of yourself on the judgement day, the day of the test. But the judgement day is much bigger than an exam and much better than an exam. It’s actually more like having an invitation to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen. We as Christians are looking forward to meeting a person more than thinking of it as an examination. But it still requires great preparation. If you were meeting the Queen you would start preparing well in advance – • Working out what you're going to wear. • Booking into the Hairdresser or Barber. • Buying a new pair of shoes • and for the ladies going to a day spa and getting the full treatment. If you're going to meet someone important you prepare. We know that Jesus will return and so we prepare. Every day we train ourselves in righteousness preparing for his coming. John says, “that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This is a promise throughout scripture that the work of sanctification begun on earth will be completed. We will be like him. In following Christ we imitate Christ, we hopefully take on more of his characteristics, we become more giving, more loving, more willing to put ourselves out for others, but when we see him face to face, see him as he is, then we shall be fully like him, completed in righteousness. So we purify ourselves. 3. LOVE The second half of the chapter from v11 onwards is all about love. The third reason we seek to be pure is simply because of love. Two people are held up before us - one a bad example and one good. The bad example is Cain. Cain murdered his brother Abel, not a particularly loving thing to do. For most of us and I would hope all of us, we probably don't identify readily with Cain. The extreme act of murder it's not a temptation for us. But remember Jesus teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, “You've heard that it was said, you shall not murder. But I tell you, anyone who is angry with either brother or sister will be subject to judgement. Anyone who says you fool will be in danger of the fire of hell.” Anger is the first step towards murder and Jesus says to those who would follow him, be on your guard. There are a few bent people out there who are hired assassins, but I would suggest very few. For the vast majority of people who commit murder, it is a crime of passion. They simply let their anger get out of control. We all have at least a little piece of Cain within us. So don't let your anger get out of control. 3 But the good example John leaves us with is Jesus. V16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” What is the most powerful image of love there is in the world? Is it a boy and a girl standing under a palm tree, looking out over the crystal blue ocean, into a tropical sunset?!? The most powerful image of love is the cross. • The innocent Son of God is prepared to die for guilty sinners. • The righteous for the unrighteous. • The holy for the unholy. • the pure for the impure. This is what love is, Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. So we ought to live pure lives. • This is a life laid down in service. • This is a life that sacrifices. • This is a life which gives whenever there is someone in need. V17 “If you see a brother or sister in need but have no pity on them how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” So we believe the truth, - Jesus laid down his life for us on the cross. So we live the truth- we lay down our lives for one another. Believe it. Live it. In v23 we’re exhorted to, “believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ”, and the way we live it is to “love one another as he is commanded us”. Believe it, Live it! In an interview Dawn French was asked what had given her self-esteem and confidence in her life. She replied: I have sometimes wondered what it was that gave me confidence from early on, and I can only put it down to my Dad. I remember that there was a night when I was going to go out to a disco, and I was really ready to do sex with anybody who wanted to ask me. I had some purple suede hot pants that I thought I looked great in. And my father called me into his office and sat me down, and I thought, ‘I'm going to get the lecture, blah blah.’ And instead of giving me a lecture about what time to be home or any of that he just said to me, ‘You are the most precious thing in our lives and you are beautiful, and you are worthy of anybody who shows you any attention. But you shouldn't fall for the scraps that any other girls leave behind: you should have the best.’ And I went out, and in fact no boy came within 10 yards of me! I wouldn't allow them because they weren’t worth it. He just gave me a bit of self-esteem. My friends there is something beautiful about purity. We should grasp it with both hands and live the new life Jesus calls us to. • We have a new identity as the children of God. • We are looking forward to Jesus return and • We have the love of the cross as our compass because that is how he first loved us. John’s exhortation to us this morning is in v3, “All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” 4