1 John 2:3-11
Main Idea: We can be sure we know God if we obey His commands
• For many of the Christians in the church at Ephesus in the Apostle John’s day, it was likely that they were questioning their own faith.
• A group of people who had been in the church had very recently left the church and it had unsettled many who were left behind in the church.
• Those who had left claimed to have a special knowledge of God and they were actively trying to get those in the church to join them in leaving the church, based on their secret revelation or higher, more superior knowledge.
• This left some in the church doubting that they were Christians because they weren’t sure of what was really true.
• Some had been shaken in their faith because they thought that if those who they believed were solid in the faith had fallen away and left the faith as well as the church, then how could they be sure of their own faith.
• For many Christians today, similar fears are far too relatable.
• When Christians see a pastor or other leader in the church commit an egregious sin and not only leave the church but leave the faith, it can be very unsettling and be cause for doubting the validity of their own belief.
• While other Christians may have a deep-seated and recurring fear that they really aren’t born again because they aren’t sure they really know the truth.
• Some see their own sin and think that they must not be a Christian if they sin, “because doesn’t 1 John say that, “Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him”?
• The dissenters claimed to know God but didn’t keep His commandments.
• The dissenters claimed to abide in Him but didn’t walk like Jesus did.
• The dissenters claimed to be in the light but they walked in darkness.
• John wanted the church to have confidence in their salvation, so he wrote this passage to refute the three main claims that those who had left the church were making about having a relationship with God.
1. We know God if we obey Him (vv 3-5a)
• Right “knowing” is meant to lead to right living but doesn’t always. The question is “are we pursuing knowing for the sake of knowing only or are we actively seeking to apply what we know to how we live?
• Knowing God isn’t a matter of just having correct thinking it entails having a genuine spiritual relationship - being personally acquainted with God and having it show in our lives.
Titus 2:11-12 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
• We don’t earn our salvation by our obedience but we confirm our salvation and our continuing to know God by our obedience. Our obedience is evidence of the prior work of God.
• John is refuting is a lifestyle that says that it doesn’t matter whether we sin or not because where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.
• Is our obedience is ongoing and continuous? Whether we habitually obey God is the test of whether we know God.
• The issue isn’t whether we are perfectly obedient – the issue is whether we are living a lifestyle of pursuing obedience to God because we want to live for Him.
• The “love of God is perfected” refers primarily to our love for God. Another way of saying this is that our love for God reaches its fulfillment or completion or maturity as we obey Him.
• If we desire to keep God’s commandments and if we are growing in our pursuit of obedience to God, we can be sure that we know God.
2. We know God if we walk like Jesus (vv5b-6)
• If we claim to live in Him or abide in Him – than we will walk in the same way that He walked – in obedience to God’s commands and in conformity to God’s word, living a lifestyle of love.
• The concept of living in Him is referring to the new and real life that we have in and through the Spirit that enables us to walk as He did – as we keep in step with the Spirit – it is living our lives in and through Him.
• As we abide in Christ and He in us – we will bear much fruit.
• Jesus says that He is the vine and we are the branches and that if we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit… but apart from Jesus, we can do nothing.
• If we abide in the vine, we will look like the vine and bear the same fruit that the vine does.
• If we live in Christ, we will walk in the same way that He did.
• At the end of every day, we shouldn’t measure our day by what we’ve accomplished alone but our overarching measure instead should be whether we have sought to be like Jesus in whatever we did.
• Are we striving to walk like Christ?
• John is saying… If we are making an effort to conform our lifestyle to that of Jesus because we love Him and want to be like Him, then we can be assured that we know God.
3. We know God if we love one another (vv9-10)
• The summation of the entire moral law of God can be found in the command to love as Christ loved.
• The command is meant to always be new for us, because we are meant to constantly fulfill the law of love in our experience as Christian disciples.
• We have been given a new law to love but not a new legalism.
• The command to love one another as Christ loved us requires our love to flow from a heart motive that seeks the good of the other person above our own and seeks to honor and glorify God in relationships.
• Christian obedience seen in the response of our love for one another is a means of living in the light.
• We cannot be genuinely committed to Christ and have a continual attitude of hatred towards other Christians.
• If we obey God and love one another as Jesus loved us, we can be sure that His love is being perfected in us.
• Christian love is sincere, selfless, sacrificial, committed, persevering and a persistent love that suffers through relational difficulties.
• Loving like this on our own is impossible and loving like Christ wouldn’t be possible unless He had already loved us – we love because He first loved us.
• A measure of Christian maturity is not only the absence of sin but the presence of love.
• When we walk in the light, we can see more clearly where we are going in and we can more easily avoid constantly giving in to temptation.
• In an authentic Christian – there will be a desire for and growing success in obedience and loving one another.
• If we are convicted by our lack of obedience and desire to change – this should be further assurance to us of the work of God in our lives and that He will enable us to be practically cleansed from all unrighteousness.
• Jesus has given us a real and new desire to live for Him and obey Him – once we were not righteous – every one of us was going our own way and then Jesus broke in and made us alive – the new birth has consequences!
Potential Application Questions:
1. Do you doubt your own salvation? If so, how and why?
2. Where do you see evidence of obedience to Christ’s commands in your life?
3. Where do you see evidence of love for one another in your life?
4. Where do you desire to be more like Christ?
5. How are you more aware of your areas of sin, failure and doubt than you are of where God is at work to give you new desires to please Him?
6. How does be assured of your salvation because of what He’s done affect the way you live your life?
7. How does confidence in our salvation help us with our desire to obey Him, walk like Him and love one another?
