The author William Feather once said; “Life begins at 40, and so do lumbago, faulty eyesight and the tendency to tell a story to the same person three or four times.” I’m well in my 40s now, but I don’t think I repeat myself all that much. It’s true isn’t it? People over a certain age become “repetitive” or “garrulous.” But I don’t think I repeat myself all that much...
At the time John’s first letter was written, he was an old man, probably in his 80’s or 90’s and so it’s not surprising that he repeats himself quite a lot in this letter. Or rather, he kind of goes round in circles, coming back to the same point over and over, but each time looking at it from a slightly different angle.
The apostle John was quite a character. When he met Jesus, he was a very young man with a hot temper. Jesus nicknamed him (and his brother James) sons of thunder. In the gospels, you see why. He once asked Jesus to call down fire from heaven on Samaritans because they didn’t believe in him. He was, in short, a loose cannon, a hot headed, tempestuous, vengeful man. But Jesus chose him to be one of the twelve. That’s because when Jesus looks at you, he doesn’t just see what you are, he looks deeper and sees what you can become, by grace, through faith, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
By the time John wrote this letter, probably six decades after meeting Jesus, he had become a mild-mannered, benign and kindly old gentleman who was always going on about love, and calling his fellow believers “dear children,” or “dear friends”. That’s what a lifetime of knowing Jesus does for you. It’s a bit like dogs resembling their owners. You become like the people you love and serve.
So let me say this straight away. God takes you as you come. You couldn’t do anything at all to make him love you more fondly or accept you more readily. But by the time he’s finished with you, you might look very different - you probably will. But it will be his work. Being a Christian is not self-help. God takes us just the way we are. That’s grace. But his goal is to change us into what we should be. That’s mercy.
This Is for You
So, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, old John writes this rambling letter. He writes it to three sorts of Christians; new believers, committed Christians and mature disciples. He calls them, in v12-14, “little children, young men and fathers.” Which group would you say you belonged to? New believers, committed Christians, mature disciples.
First of all, new believers. What does he say to them? Two things: he says that they know their sins are forgiven (v12) and they’ve discovered God as their Father (end of v13). That’s a good start. Those of you who are young in the faith really don’t need to go any further until you’ve understood those two things. Let’s take them in turn; first, forgiveness.
When we ask God to forgive us, he totally wipes out the stain of sin in our lives. He completely cleans the slate. You haven’t got to go on confessing the same thing, cringing and begging and hoping that God might just decide to give you a break! Our God freely pardons. I’ve spoken to people from other faiths and this is the big thing that makes Christians different from Muslims, Hindus, Jehovah’s Witnesses or Buddhists: we can be totally assured of full forgiveness.
Dr Karl Menninger, an American psychiatrist and not a Christian, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that they were forgiven, 75% of them would walk out the next day. I don’t know how true that is, but I have met many people in pastoral ministry whose growth as a Christian is horribly stunted because they never learned this basic thing.
But let me say this too. (And this is fundamental but there are many older Christians who haven’t learned this yet); God will totally forgive you and bring blessing and renewal into your life to the same measure that you are freely forgiving and blessing others who have wronged you. “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” This is hard isn’t it?
You may have been profoundly wronged. You may have been offended as an innocent party. Someone has been unfair to you, you’ve been ill-treated, let down, betrayed. I’ve been through that too and it took me a long time to get to a place where I could genuinely wish the best for the person who harmed me and speak well of them. But I know now that it’s one of the keys to blessing and new life. Forgiveness brings healing to the restless soul and restores peace with God.
These young believers have understood that and they have also started off in their walk with God by relating to him as Father. They know they are children of God, loved and accepted by him. God is everything you long for in a Father with none of the downsides we associate with our own fallen, imperfect dads. He is devoted, he cares, he protects, he corrects, he provides - and you want to be like him. That’s the Father heart of God and these new Christians have discovered how good he is. Is your soul alive to the glad affection your Father lavishes on you in Christ?
John’s writing to older Christians too. They’re not “little children” any more so John addresses them as “young men.” (Or as the latest revision of the NIV translates it, “young people.” John was not only writing to male Christians here). As they’ve gone on further, he says (in v14), they’ve become strong. Where does that vigour come from? John says, “You’re strong because the word of God lives in you.” They’ve been reading and soaking in the Bible and it’s built up their spiritual muscle.
And you know what God strengthens people for don’t you? It tells you, twice, (in the middle of v13 and the end of v14). It’s so that when the devil attacks you can prevail and not give in. They’ve had some victories already; “you have overcome the evil one,” he says. They’re resisting temptation. They’re standing firm against Satan’s accusations. They’re prevailing against his constant attempts to grind them down. They’ve begun to be discerning. They can tell when the father of lies is talking. They’re seeing strongholds come down through prayer. They’ve strengthened themselves in the word of God and they’re winning.
Listen; we cannot take ground from Satan if Satan has ground in us. You win the battle and you win it decisively, says 1 John 2.14, if you are fortified by the Word of God. And if you aren’t doing that, then spiritually it can get ugly out there.
There’s a story about a man who wanted to sell his house. He found a buyer but he was poor, so he couldn’t afford the full price. So they started bargaining and after much discussion, the owner agreed to sell the house half price on one condition: He would retain ownership of one small nail hanging over the front door. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the smell was so disgusting, the house became uninhabitable, and the man was forced to sell the house back to the owner of the nail. If I leave the Devil even one small peg in my life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ’s habitation.
So how are you doing against the powers of evil? Are you winning? Does the Devil still have a little nail hanging over your front door? It could be unforgiveness, it could be unbelief. It could be an improper relationship, or a wrong attitude. It could be a compulsive habit or a spiritual compromise. The only way is to take that nail off and fix it to Christ’s cross. “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” says Galatians 5.24.
Young believers and committed Christians; John is also writing to mature and experienced disciples; models that others in the church look up to. He calls them “fathers” in v13, probably because they knew what it was to lead people to Christ and have spiritual children. “I write to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning,” a sentence he repeats in the following verse.
What’s your goal as a Christian? Think about that... The distinguishing feature of mature disciples, according to v14 is to really know God. Even the apostle Paul, who had been caught up to paradise, who had seen the Lord’s glory on the road to Damascus, who spoke in tongues more than all the Corinthians, who had ecstatic celestial encounters in the 3rd heaven, we’re told - so amazing he didn’t even know whether it was an out of the body experience or not - Paul, twenty years after his conversion wrote about having one single future aspiration: “I just want to know Christ...” That’s all I need.
There is no greater thing than knowing Jesus. If you’re going to attain maturity, being parents in God as it were to younger believers, then make knowing Christ your highest ambition. Are you hungry to know God more?
John could have been writing to us at All Saints.’ New believers, older Christians and wise, mature disciples. Each of us is at a different stage in our walk with God. The question is, “Are you advancing?”
The theme this morning is “the Father’s family.” What does it mean to be a part of God’s family? Looking at this passage, I put it to you that it means three things; loving God, loving each other and loathing the world.
1) Loving God
Firstly, being in the Father’s family is about a loving relationship with God; it all starts there. How would you define love? It’s not easy... A psychology textbook once defined it as, “the cognitive affective state characterised by intrusive and obsessive fantasising concerning reciprocity of amorant feeling by the object of the amorance.” If you want a definition that is a little more accessible, the Bible defines love for God as obeying his commands. That’s what it says in v5. “If anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them.”
There’s a story about a woman who was suffering from marital unhappiness, so her concerned husband took her to see a specialist. He listens to the couple talk about their relationship, and then says, “The treatment I prescribe is really quite simple.” He goes over to the man’s wife, gathers her up in his arms, and gives her a big kiss. He then steps back and looks at the woman’s glowing face and broad smile. So he turns to the woman’s husband and says, “See! That’s basically all she needs, twice a week.” So the man replies, “OK Doctor, I’ll bring her in on Tuesdays and Fridays.”
Loving God is more than dutifully turning up on Wednesdays and Sundays. On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being very weak and 10 being very strong, how great is your love for God, measured in obeying his commands from the heart?
2) Loving Each Other
The next thing is loving each other. In John’s Gospel and letters, life is very black and white, with no shades of grey. In all his writings there are sharp contrasts, you might have noticed it. You are either one thing or the opposite. So he says, for example, you have gone;
· from darkness to light
· from hate to love
· from lies to truth
· from not knowing God to knowing Him
· from lawlessness to righteousness
· from being children of the devil to being children of God
In v9 John says that you can’t claim you love God if you hate your fellow believer. There’s something not quite right about sending someone a card with “Jesus loves you” written on it, if it says inside, “But I think you’re a creep!”
Loving God through obedience to him is one thing. But loving others, how are we going to do this? There are an awful lot of annoying people in the world and some of them come to church! How are we going to love people we’d frankly rather avoid? The answer lies in one little word. John keeps addressing his readers as “children.” He does it in verse 1 and verse 18, for example. He deliberately uses the word “child” and not the word “son”, which Paul uses in Romans 8 and Ephesians 1. In those days, only the sons inherited the Father’s blessings, so Paul was basically saying, “In Christ, everything comes to us.”
But John is not really talking about inheritance here. He is making a different point, and equally wonderful. It’s not just that we receive from God all good things. John’s point here is that, as his children, we actually become like he is. There is a family likeness.
F.F. Bruce says, “The words used denote relationship to God and carry with them also the connotation of likeness to God; the two ideas are inseparable, for likeness is the proof of relationship.” Likeness is the proof of relationship.
Our four children all happen to resemble me very closely. This is a disadvantage for them. But it is also a relief for me, particularly in Joseph’s case. When the pregnancy was diagnosed, they calculated the expected date of delivery. I wouldn’t normally have a problem with that. But according to their maths I was actually 200 miles away from Kathie at the estimated time of conception. Now my wife is gifted, but not that gifted! But Joe is my son and everybody knows it because, I’m told, he looks like me.
“Likeness is the proof of relationship.” Joe is my son and everybody knows it. Same thing with God. We know we are God’s because we are like him - not physically, but in terms of our character. There is more of it in our lives than there was before, if we are walking with God and the more we become like him the more we can love the unlovable.
3) Loathing the World
So love for God and love for others. Pursue both with all your energy. But there’s another love here and it’s a love you should repudiate as strongly as you pursue the other two; John calls it love for the world and he strongly warns against it. He’s not saying, “Don’t love the people in the world.” He is saying, “Don’t be attracted to life without God. Hate all that is under Satan’s rule. Throw off your attachment to, and affection for, the glitz and glamour and passing pleasure of life without God.
What does John say? Verses 15-17. “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If you love the world, love for the Father is not in you. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful people, the lust of their eyes and their boasting about what they have and do—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”
I think one of the devil’s biggest lies is that Christians miss out because they don’t buy into the world’s appeal. Somehow, because we’re Christians, we get a raw deal.
There’s a story of an old priest and trainee priest in a Confessional. It was the trainee’s turn to hear confession. It lasted a little while and the penance was suitably quite long at the end. “How did I do?” said the novice to the old pro. “It was a start,” he replied, “but you must learn moderation. When hearing a confession of excesses of the flesh, you should solemnly say, “I see, my child.” Don’t say, “Wow!”
There’s nothing “wow!” about the world. Let’s get this silly idea out of our minds once and for all that Satan gives you a good time. He doesn’t. He gives you Hell. Worldliness simply creates in us a dependence, a thirst for more, which eventually all goes sour.
Listen to the words of Lord Byron, one of England’s libertine poets: “Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump of fame; drank early; drank deeply; drank draughts which common millions might have drunk. Then died of thirst, because there was no more to drink.”
“Don’t love the world”, says John, “or anything in it. All that stuff, the cravings, the appetites, the boasting about what we’ve got, comes not from the Father, but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
Ending
So that’s the Father’s family – new, growing believers; solid, committed Christians; wise, mature disciples; lovers of God, lovers of others and loathers of sin. Like every family it has its moments but no other family has a Father like this one. Aren’t you glad you’re in?
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 8th February 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment