Walking as Jesus Walked
Notes
Transcript
You’ve all probably heard the expression, “What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” Maybe in some cases this is true, but very often what you don’t know can hurt and may even kill you or someone else. “I didn’t know there was a car coming”. “I didn’t know the ice was so thin.” “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”
This is even more true in the spiritual realm. Do you know if you’re going to heaven or not? Do you know Jesus? There is nothing more important than knowing that your sins have been forgiven and that you are in a right relationship with God. This is not something you want to be uncertain about, especially since the Bible tells us that we can know what our eternal destination will be.
How does a person know whether or not they really know Jesus Christ? Since the beginning of the Church there have been people who claimed to be Christians but who were so in name only. Even John had to deal with this issue, since there were false disciples in his day. One of the reasons he is writing this letter is to let the readers know how to tell if someone really does know God.
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
Ways of knowing God
Ways of knowing God
What does John mean by knowing God? To know God means to abide in God. To have fellowship with God has always been the quest of the human spirit. God wants us to know Him, but all too often we create a false god made in our own image. John wants us to know the one true God. In our passage today he is hiving us a test we can use to see if we really know God.
Not just intellectual reasoning
Requires no ethical content
Not an emotional experience
Requires no objective content
Revelation
We can know God
Fullest in Jesus Christ
This knowledge is not only knowledge about God but knowing God in a personal way and being in fellowship with Him.
Results of knowing God
Results of knowing God
We can know that we know God
Obedience
Doing what He commands - True knowledge of God results in living according to God’s will. Begins with our attitude, desiring to please God by doing what He says. If this is our attitude, our actions will follow. Without the attitude our actions, even ones of obedience, are mere outward shows.
This obedience is not out of fear – if I don’t obey God will ‘get’ me.
It is not out of desire for reward– if I obey then God will give me what I want
We seek to obey God’s commands not in order to earn God’s love but because we know that God does love us. Our obedience is a way we can show God that we love Him. Not that we will always obey God in everything, for we are not perfect. John doesn’t say that the one who knows God obeys His commands perfectly or all the time. He means that we are trying to do what He commands to the best of our ability. The question is whether our lifestyle as a whole is directed toward pleasing God.
Love for God
This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
A boy was once tempted by his companions to pluck some ripe cherries from a tree which his father had forbidden him to touch. “You need not be afraid,” they said. “If your father should find out that you have taken them, he is so kind that he will not hurt you.” “For that very reason,” the boy replied, “I ought not to touch them. My father may not hurt me, but my disobedience would hurt my father.”
Love for neighbor
John goes on in the letter to specify what command he is talking about – loving one another, which is the same command Jesus gave the disciples
1 John 4:20–21 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Walking as Jesus walked
Obedience
Humility
Compassion
John is very clear that if someone claims to know God but does not do what God has commanded is a liar.
If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
As Jesus said when speaking about good tress and bad trees, by their fruit you shall recognize them (Matt. 7:20).
Reward of knowing God
Reward of knowing God
God’s love made complete in us -our love for God will be mature.
Experience a deeper relationship with God, leads to fellowship and communion with God. Bod the Father and God the Son will come and make their home in those who obey the teaching of Jesus.
John 14:23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him
It is the power of the Holy Spirit living in us which enables us to obey and walk as Jesus did. He pours out God’s love into our hearts (Rom. 5:5).