Be Yourself

1 John 2:28-3:3

Preached 10/15/2023 [Previous Sermon]

[audio]

  

INTRODUCTION

 

I imagine that a few of you were surprised at the title of today’s message.  “Be Yourself” is the catch-phrase of the world and its self-centered philosophies.  People are always telling us they are trying to ‘find themselves’. And this is not new. Remember in Hamlet, when Polonius gave his advice to his son Laertes that it ended with “This above all—to thine own self be true.” People engage in a lifetime of self-discovery. But there are a few obvious problems with this. First, we tend to be blind to our own faults. We exalt ourselves and focus on the faults of others, and when we look at ourselves it is with rose-tinted glasses.  Like the Pharisees who hated Jesus, we are self-righteous and usually of the opinion that we are far better than the average crowd of “deplorables”.  Secondly, self-discovery tends to be a journey into our feelings, leading us to be one self one day and another self the next.  At this point in our culture this tendency to follow Obi Wan Kenobi’s advice: “Trust your feelings, Luke!” leads many people to live in complete fantasy worlds, often leading to very dire consequences at the worst or chaotic existences at best.

 

Rest assured, this is not going to be a message about trusting your feelings.  I don’t know about you, but my feelings have been rather disappointing over the years, and I decided long ago to consider them untrustworthy (long before I met Jesus actually).  Feelings can make life more fun and exciting, but I think they should be your servant and not your master.

 

So what do I mean by this title?  Well, I chose it because that is what I believe the apostle John meant in these verses.  But he was not pointing toward our feelings at all.  He was not saying that we should go out and “discover ourselves”.  No, he was writing to Christians, and he is telling them three things in these verses:

 

1. Be Who You Say You Are,
2. Be Who God Says You Are, and
3. Be Who You Are Destined to Be.

 

Before getting into the points, let’s remember where we are in this letter. Remember that John wrote his gospel first, which tells about the life of Jesus, before he wrote this letter. In that gospel, he indicated that it was written “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  So his gospel was written for people who do not yet believe in Jesus to show them who He is and what He did so that they might be saved.  This letter, however, has a different audience and purpose, as we read in the fifth chapter of first John:

 

1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

 

So 1 John is written to true believers for the purpose of giving them confidence in their belief.  We have been going through the first two chapters and John has given tests by which we can measure the genuineness of our faith.  He said that if we say we have fellowship with Him then we will not walk in darkness but in the light.  We will not deny our sins but will confess them to God and repent of them. We should strive not to sin, but trust the work of Christ to be our advocate with the Father.  If we have come to know Him, we will keep his commandments.  We will walk in the same manner as Jesus did.  We will love our brother and not hate him.  We will feel the initial thrill of knowing that we are forgiven and that somehow God has become our heavenly father, but we will not stop there – we will take in God’s word and let it abide in us and we will even overcome the evil one.  And in the end, we will reach maturity when we really get to know him who has been from the beginning.  John also warns us that we will not love the world and its lusts, but instead we will love the Father.

 

And finally, we learned that a true believer will not fall away from the faith and leave the fellowship of believers, because they have been anointed by the Holy One, and they will have true knowledge of Him that will keep them in the faith.  They will not deny Christ, or what the bible teaches us about Him.  Therefore they will not be deceived by people who try to lead them away from the faith. 

 

John ended all this with the warning that, just as this anointing had taught them, they should “abide (stay) in Him.” (v27)  The first verse of today’s selection repeats the same command. Actually, I think we could also think of this in a descriptive way.  What do I mean.  Consider this: in his previous talk about the “antichrists”, or false believers, in the church, John said their main identifying characteristic was that they would fall away from Christ. So it follows that fidelity to Christ is a sign of true belief, and should give a believer assurance.  In other words, if you are really saved, then you will abide in Him. So seeing the flow of thought we should get to the text.

 

These five verses can rightfully be viewed as a sort of parenthesis between the first part of the letter and the second.  John takes a few moments to address sin and righteousness in the light of what we are before continuing with the second half of his letter of assurance.  And all of this is described in the light of the glory of Christ’s return – his appearing.

 

 

I  Be Who You Say You Are (2:28-29):

 

The first idea is simple.  Jesus is coming back – are you ready?  John pointed out back in verse 18 that “Antichrist is coming”, and now he reminds us that Jesus Christ is coming also.  This is a sure thing, and we should be ready for it. The return of Christ is a central feature of the gospel.  After Jesus ascended into heaven, an angel informed his disciples “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Act 1:11b)  All over the Bible there are references to it.  Half of the prophesies about Jesus in the Old Testament relate to his second coming.  The Bible ends with the promise that He is “coming quickly.”  Not soon, but quickly.  Paul describes it as happening “in the blink of an eye”. It is a glorious time, as described in the book of Hebrews:

 

Hebrews 9:27-28   And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

 

A true Christian is marked by that description – we are “eagerly waiting” for Jesus.  So this brings us to our text:

 

1 John 2:28   And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.

 

What a picture!  There are two responses to the coming of Christ – to his “appearing”.  Those who abide in Christ have “confidence”. Those who don’t abide in Christ will “shrink from him in shame”.  As one commentator explains, “Shame is a euphemism for the utter disgrace of a sinner.” Utter disgrace is the mark of the unsaved, not the saved.

 

I used to think that this was just a warning to Christians not to be doing something embarrassing when Jesus arrived. Now that is certainly a good thought (and works with 1 Jn 3:3) but in the overall context it seems that this is a description again of the assurance that a believer should have.  The redeemed face the return of Christ with joy and confidence – not because of our own righteousness, but because our “advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous”, is coming to bring us to heaven as He promised, having paid our way by being “the propitiation for our sins”. (2:1-2)

 

Do you claim to be a Christian?  John starts out by giving a two-fold description that will be true of you if you are.  First, you will be looking forward to seeing Jesus, and second, you will practice righteousness.  That’s in the second verse:

 

1 John 2:29   If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

 

We all know about the concept of “family resemblance”.  If you need an example, we have a whole section of redheads in the church to illustrate the concept.  Inheritance is a powerful influence in our development, but in the spiritual sense it is even more determinative. Like begets like.  God’s children will be godlike.

 

In the next chapter John will assert this in concrete terms: “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1 John 3:9)  We will get more into the idea of committing a sin versus “practicing” sin in a future sermon, but suffice it to say now that John is talking about patterns of behavior. He has admitted in 1:8-10 that as believers we will fall into sin and need to confess those sins, but here he points out that this sin will not characterize our lives.  In one of many such passages, Paul writes this:

 

1 Corinthians 6:9-10  Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Have you committed any of these sins?  If you have, does that mean that you have lost your salvation? No, if you are saved your sins, past, present, and future are covered by the blood of Christ.  But if you are saved, those should not characterize your life.  Either you are a Christian, or you are an adulterer. If you excuse your sin and say “you’ll have to excuse me, that’s just the way I am” then you are denying your salvation.  Look at what Paul writes in the next verse:

 

1 Corinthians 6:11  And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

 

I imagine that those believers in Corinth still committed sins, just like I do.  We all may have that sin which “easily besets us”.  But sanctification should be progressing.  If you still are living at the same moral level as ten years ago, then your faith is questionable.  You should have been washed.  You should have been sanctified.  But you say “that’s just the way I am”.  “I’m just an angry person”.  I had one person years ago say that they were angry all the time because they were a redhead (not a family relation).  One podcaster who identifies as a Christian decided to stop throttling his foul language on his show recently using the justification “it’s the way I was raised – everybody cussed all the time”.  But if you say “I’m just a <blank>” instead of “I used to be a <blank> but now I am a Christian so I am trusting Jesus to help me stop <blanking> because that’s not who I am anymore” then you can have assurance.  Faith alone saves, but faith that saves is not alone.  It is impossible for someone who is saved not to be changed.  If we are in Christ we are “a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Co 5:17). As James observed:

 

Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” And “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”  (James 2:18b, 26)

 

 

II Be Who God Says You Are (3:1):

 

These first two verses were rather somber, but in the next verse John begins to marvel:

 

1 John 3:1   See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

 

Behold!  John begins. ‘Stop and listen! What I am about to say is mind boggling!  If your mind is not blown by the type of love that the Father has given to us, you are not paying attention!’ Ask yourself, have I ever marveled at the fact that the fact that God not only saved me but adopted me into his family? Seriously – don’t take it for granted.  Be amazed! We become his children?  The Greek word John uses here, potapos, that is translated as “how great a love” or “what manner of love” or “what kind of love”, is an interesting word that literally reads as “from what country (or place)”.  It is a type of love foreign to all human experience – it is other-worldly.  It is unexpected. It is (borrowing a term from the title of a book by Francis Chan) Crazy Love. It is an amazing privilege that we don’t deserve. 

 

But wait, someone may say.  Isn’t everybody a child of God?  Consider the rest of the verse.  John says that when God called us his children, the world no longer knew us, because it did not know Him. Paul wrote that before we had come to faith in Christ we were under God’s judgment (“children of wrath”), we were dead in our sins, and we followed the course of the devil (“the prince of the power of the air”), like the rest of mankind. (Eph 2)  Our minds were blinded by the god (little ‘g’) of this world to the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Co 4:4)  Even John ends this letter with a warning that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” (5:19)  Jesus told the religious leaders of his day “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.” So there are two families now in this world.

 

The truth is that membership in the family of God ended with the rebellion of our first parents in Eden.  Since then, the entire kosmos – ‘the world’ as John calls it here - has been in rebellion.  If it were not for God’s love that would have been the end.  But even as Adam and Eve received the just deserts of their sin and were expelled from Eden, God promised a redeemer. Why? John quotes Jesus as He spoke to Nicodemus the teacher of Israel in John 3:16 “For God SO LOVED the world…” - that world that was lost and broken and hated Him – “that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  Paul marvels in Romans that “…God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)

 

What kind of love is this? An unfathomable love! It’s a foreign love. It’s a wild and crazy love in our reckoning, but it’s our salvation. And when we join God’s family it is forever. And we are forever separated from the system of this world under Satan. As John writes later “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” And Jesus will come back and take us to His home forever.  He promised:  “In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:2-3).  If God so loved us that He calls us his children, how should we then live? Does it give you goosebumps thinking of it?  It should.

 

So it goes to reason that if we are children of God, we should be acting like children of God.  We won’t love the world or the things in the world. Because, as John has already told us in this letter, if we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us. The lusts and desires of this world are not from the Father but are from the world. And… the world is going to end, but whoever does the will of God will abide forever. So if God calls you his children, be his children.  Abide in Him!

 

 

III   Be Who You Are Destined To Be (3:2-3):

 

If your mind was not blown by the previous verse, John now opens the doors of glory and lets us have a tiny glimpse of our glorification – and it is glorious.  Because we are God’s children, we will be full members of the family.  But we will have to finish our transformation into the image of our Savior.  How will it happen?  John brings us back to the return of Christ, and he lets us know just what Jesus’ return will mean for God’s children:

 

1 John 3:2   Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

 

Just seeing Him will do it. We will get a full dose of the revelation that started the process. What do I mean by that?  To understand, we must look at a similar statement in 2 Corinthians.  In chapter four Paul gives us a behind the scenes picture of the transition that changes us into a Christian.  In verse four he describes our past, as a part of the world, dead in our sins.  In that state we are unable to see the truth because “the god of this world” had blinded our minds.  We were specifically blinded to the glory of Christ, the image of the very God.  But then a miracle happened – a miracle of special revelation:

 

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

 

It wasn’t the full blast of his glory, but it was enough to get the ball rolling.  A full blast of the holy glorious brightness of the Son of God would be fatal to a sinful human.  When Moses asked to see God’s glory, He responded, "You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!" (Ex 33:20) But He gave Moses a peek at his ‘back’.  Jesus revealed some of his glory to some of the apostles on the mount of transfiguration and they cowered in fear and babbled.  But the internal revelation of the glory of God in the face of Christ had a great effect. 

• It showed us the truth about Jesus and the gospel. 
• That little, tiny, barely perceptible glimpse of the glory of God in the face of Christ made us a new creation.
• It imprinted on us so that, as his sheep, we will always know his voice and follow Him.
• Like a match at the edge of a piece of paper, it started a fire burning that cannot be quenched.

 

If we turn back to chapter three in 2 Corinthians we see this explicitly:

 

2 Cor 3:18  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

 

One who sees the glory of God in the face of Christ cannot emerge unchanged, even though it is a partial view.  But it was not the full view, but that is coming.  In his great chapter on love, Paul wrote these familiar words:

 

1 Cor 13:12  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

 

That is the same thing that John is describing here in verse two. We are not yet the finished product, but we should be pressing on toward that place, because if we belong to Jesus, “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil 1:6)  If you have had the beatific vision, how will this effect your life?  What will loving his appearing do to us?

 

1 John 3:3   And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

 

 

Certainly we can understand this as a warning – it is certainly human for, say, for students to stop goofing off and pretend to be doing schoolwork when they hear the teacher returning to class. When we were young we would be more motivated to clean up our messes when our parents were due to come home (or, say, during the weeks before Christmas). But that is not what John is saying.  Unlike the unbeliever, a Christian does not fear the coming of Christ.  In this world we are like Paul, who said “who will set me free from this body of death”.  Jesus coming back means total sanctification.  It means losing the remaining sin and desire to sin and all of the remaining guilt and sorrow of this world and the knowledge that we are disappointing our Lord.  All gone!  No, there is a better analogy.

 

Consider rather the image of a bride.  How does a bride typically prepare for a wedding?  Just the dress alone is a major endeavor.  For a garment that is only worn for a few hours some people will spend a small fortune.  And there is a lot more.  Well, when Christ returns it will be for his bride. In Revelation 19 we read

 

Rev 19:6-8   ⁶ Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. ⁷ Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; ⁸ it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure"-- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

 

Now we have a worthy picture of what John is talking about in 3:3.  If we love his appearing, we will want to be ready.  Because, as we read in Ephesians 5, Christ “loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

 

If we are God’s children, the hope of seeing his face in all its glory and “being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” will cause us to clean up our act because, as Paul writes “we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.” (2 Cor 5:8-9)  That is the inexorable mark of a believer.  “We love, because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

 

 

Conclusion

 

Remember the quote from Hamlet earlier?  I actually left out the last part of what Polonius said, and it is the most important part.  The full admonition was: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”  To put it in a simpler form: phonies are found out in the end. Living a lie is tiring.  In the end, people will see that you are a hypocrite. The people that you go to church with, your schoolmates, your family, and especially your kids. You are not as slick as you think.  But even if you manage to fool everybody, you will not fool God. “…for God [sees] not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Sam 16:7 NASB)  But not just God will know – as Jesus warned: “Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:3)  

 

In the end, there is one test, one source of confidence.  Paul wrote about it in his last, personal, letter to Timothy right before his martyr’s death:

 

2 Timothy 4:6-8  ⁶ For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸ Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

 

This crown, the crown of righteousness (not our righteousness, but Christ’s), is given to all who abide in Christ to the end, John calls them “overcomers”.  John puts it this way in chapter five: “…everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.”  (1John 5:4)  What gets us to the end?  Loving his appearing.

 

Are you living in the light of the moment when you see the face of Jesus and become like Him?  Do the attractions of this earth “become strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”  Do you pray, like John at the end of the book of Revelation, “Amen! Come Lord Jesus!”? If so, be yourself.  To thine own self (the transformed, spirit-filled, God-obeying, joyfully-evangelizing, sin-hating, righteous-acting, neighbor-loving, scripture-consuming newly-created self) be true!

 

If not, don’t be yourself.  Come to Jesus in faith and become someone who will not shrink away from Him in shame at his coming.  Be that guy!  For that guy, the future is so bright that – well, we won’t need shades there. We will see his face and shout “glory”!

 

[Next Sermon]

Deceiving and Being Deceived

1 John 2:18-27

 

Preached 9/10/2023 [Previous Sermon]

[audio]

 

INTRODUCTION

 

It was providential that we were in 1 Corinthians 15 last week.  Remember that in that chapter the apostle Paul was warning the believers in Corinth that they must hold fast to the gospel of Christ, particularly the historic bits about his death, burial, and resurrection on the third day.  They must hold fast to the gospel with a firm white-knuckled grip because the gospel is historical, because the resurrection of Christ is our only source of hope, and because of the hero of the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ. The passage ends with Jesus defeating all authorities and finally even the last enemy, death, and returning to heaven “so that God may be all in all”. (1 Cor 15:26-28)  In short, without the Lord Jesus Christ there is no gospel, there is no Christianity, and there is no hope. And it’s not just any guy with the name of “Jesus”, it is the Jesus of the gospel.  Who is that Jesus?

 

He is the Word of John 1:1, the eternal Son who in the beginning was with God and was God, who was God’s unique begotten Son (John 3:16), the Word who “became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The One promised by Isaiah the prophet who would be born as a child but would be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, [and] Prince of Peace”, who would come to rule “forevermore”.  And though He would have “no form or majesty that we should look at him” and would be “despised and rejected by men”, He would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows and He would receive stripes and be pierced and crushed for our transgressions and iniquities.  In fact, the Lord would lay on Him the iniquity of us all. And it came to pass, as Paul wrote: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21) and He “was declared to be the Son of God in power …  by his resurrection from the dead …” (Rom 1:4)  Without these facts, there is no such thing as Christianity, and, as Paul points out, without the resurrection from the dead and the hope it brings, “we are of all people the most to be pitied”.

 

This brings us to our next passage in the first letter of the apostle John.  Remember that John is writing to Christians who are evidently feeling some doubts about their salvation, and John is writing to them to give them assurance.  Remember the purpose statement he gives in the fifth chapter:

 

1 John 5:13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

 

In the previous seven sermons from this book, we have seen that John gives assurance by describing things that are not true of individuals who are saved.  The three categories of tests that he gives us are social, moral, and doctrinal. In the immediately preceding verses John warned against the love of the world instead of the love of God.  The next text is a doctrinal test. John starts the section with an alarming warning:

 

1 John 2:18   Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared. From this we know that it is the last hour.

 

We all have a concept of a person called “The Antichrist”, a name that lurks on the edges of our most sinister imaginations and inhabits the charts of prophesy teachers and Hollywood movies alike. You might be surprised that John is the only writer in the entire Bible to use that name, and only in his first two epistles.  Now that does not mean that this person is not described elsewhere in scripture, but we will have to look under other names. That name must have been in general use by the later decades of the first century when John wrote this letter, though, as indicated by his matter-of-fact statement that you (plural) have heard that he is coming, so John is not making up a new doctrine.  In fact, John will not talking “The” Antichrist at this point, but uses the name as an introduction to another point about the church.

 

So what does the Bible say about “The” Antichrist?  I’m not going to spend much time here other than to mention a few of the passages that talk about him. Of course he is found in the book of Revelation where he is described as a world leader that John perceives as “the Beast” in his prophetic visions. The unbelieving world will give him all authority and he will speak blasphemies against God and rule for 42 months.  He will control all commerce and his number will mysteriously be six-six-six.  He will torment the saints until the Lord comes and captures him and he is thrown into the lake of fire forever.  But there are other references of which here are a few:

 

The first mention of this man is way back in the book of Daniel. In a series of predictions in the seventh chapter of Daniel he arrives as a “little horn” who “speaks great things” and defeats other kingdoms until he is defeated by “the Ancient of Days” and given over to be burned with fire. He returns later in Daniel, where he is called “the one who makes desolate” and who will defile God’s temple in an “abomination of Desolation”.  In the New Testament, the apostle Paul calls him “the man of lawlessness”, “the lawless one”, and “the son of destruction” in 2 Thessalonians. According to Paul he will oppose and exalt himself against every other so-called god, taking his seat in God’s temple and proclaiming himself to be God, which makes him a satanic counterfeit of Jesus. He will perform false signs and wonders and deceive those who are perishing (which Paul says is the devil’s ministry in 2 Corinthians 4).  In the end, Jesus will end his reign with a word – with the breath of his mouth – and bring him to nothing.

 

But that is all future, though it will happen in the last days. Of course the question on everybody’s lips is: “when are these last days?”  As John points out, we are there.  He starts this section with “it is the last hour”, and that was back in the first century AD.  In Acts 2:17 Peter implies that they started with the beginning of the church.  The writer of the book of Hebrews confirms this when he says that God has spoken to us (past tense) in these last days by his Son.  Peter writes in 1Peter 1:20 that Christ “was made manifest in the last times for your sake”.  And Paul warns Timothy in his second letter to him that “in the last days there will come times of difficulty”.  What follows in 2 Timothy chapter three is a list of sins and attitudes that sound like today:

 

2 Timothy 3:2-4   For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

 

Certainly that does not just sound like a plot of a movie about the apocalypse – it could be discerned from any newspaper printed today.  But then he goes on to describe their religious practices.  They have an appearance of godliness but deny its power.  They creep into households and capture the weak through sin and sensuality. They and their victims are described as “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”  This is very important, and the section finishes with this warning:

 

2 Timothy 3:13 But evil men and impostors will proceed [from bad] to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

 

What does Paul recommend to Timothy?  In verses 14-17 his direction is clear – “continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed.” He directs him to remember “the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”  With those scriptures, Paul says Timothy will be “complete, equipped for every good work”. This passage is a strong parallel to the words that John wrote here in chapter two of his first epistle, from the warning to the solution.  John calls these imposters “antichrists”, and says that many of them have arisen.

 

From the beginning, Jesus described his coming kingdom in a strange way.  During the last times, which encompass the entire church age from Pentecost at the beginning of Acts to the great final battle between Christ and Antichrist in Revelation, the visible kingdom would have two types of people in it.  The sheep and the goats.  The wheat and the tares (weeds).  But at the end of this age the wheat is going to be separated from the tares and the tares will be burned.  Jesus said He would separate the sheep from the goats and the latter would go into “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46).

 

What is the difference between wheat and tares?  The truth is, both plants are nearly identical – right up until they produce seeds.  In the parable Jesus talks of a farmer whose enemy plants tares among his wheat plants in an attempt to ruin his crop.  The problem is that the tares are not detected until it is too late and it is too hard to selectively pull out only one kind of plant.  In the church it is the same way.  Not all those who go to a church are actually saved, and we do not have the omniscient sight to tell the difference in others accurately.  If we go around attacking everyone in the church that we think is less spiritual than us, real wheat plants will be damaged as we grab every plant that we think is a weed.  But Jesus assures us that He knows his sheep and the final tally will be exact and correct and just.

 

And John is not giving us these next few verses so that we can form an Inquisition Tribunal to inspect our fellow church members. Jesus gave the only rules (and authority) to the church for dealing with sin there in Matthew 18.  No, remember that John is writing to Christians so that they may be sure of their own salvation and eternal destiny, so that they can rest in their faith in the wonderful Christ who saved them, and this is no exception. 

 

So what is a little ‘a’ antichrist, anyway?  Well, the Greek prefix “anti” has two meanings: against or in the place of. So antichrist can mean “against Christ” or “instead of  Christ”.   Now if someone went around a church preaching against Jesus, they would be rather obviously not a true Christian.  But we have no problem replacing the true Jesus with false ones of our own imagination. Paul chided the Corinthian believers because they were listening to “super-apostles” who came to them and “proclaim[ed] another Jesus than the one we proclaimed”.  Remember that in last week’s example, those same believers wanted to avoid offending their neighbors by adopting a Jesus that did not physically rise from the dead.  Paul warned them against this.  These “antichrists”, then, were marked by having other versions of Jesus than the true one.  As we look through this passage we will see that those John wrote to here were in the same predicament, and so are we today.  So John says that “many antichrists have arisen”.  He then gives us three characteristics of an antichrist (and therefore, by extension, three characteristics of a true believer):

 

1. He Departs from the Fellowship (so true believers stay),
2. He Denies the Faith (so true believers affirm the faith),
3. He Tries to Deceive the Faithful (so true believers preach the true gospel).

 

Let’s look at the Departure, the Doctrine, and the Deception of these antichrists:

 

 

I  Departure of AntiChrists (v19):

 

1 John 2:19  They went out from us, but they were not [really] of us; for if they were of us, they would have remained with us; but [they went out], so that it would be manifested that they all are not of us.

 

Boice points out that this verse bears upon two great Christian doctrines: the perseverance of the saints and the nature of the visible church.  We have already touched on the latter idea and this can easily be understood.  First, we must understand that the word “church” is used in more than one way in scripture.  First, it is the universal body of Christ, the church that Jesus said that He would personally build and that the gates of hell would not prevail over. This universal, or invisible church is the gathering of every person redeemed by the blood of Christ, who has received Him by faith, and who has eternal life with Him forever. But there is also the visible church, the human organization that meets together in the name of Jesus in various places all over the world, all through this “last hour”. And that organization will always be comprised of true and false believers even according to Jesus. When you come to the end of the sermon on the mount you find Jesus giving a warning about people coming to Him and saying “Lord, Lord, look at all the wonderful things I did for my church”, to which He said that He will tell some “depart from Me, I never knew you”.  That is a sobering warning.  I am convinced that when we get to judgment a lot of us will be surprised when we see some of the most pious individuals we know unmasked as being unsaved, and others we thought unworthy being received in joy because of their faith in Jesus.  As God told Samuel in the Old Testament: “God does not see as man sees, since man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Sam 16:7)

 

The other major doctrine is the one described here – the Perseverance of the Saints. It is also sometimes described as “once saved, always saved”, though this term, while descriptive, leaves open some misunderstandings.  The idea is that, since every believer is “born again” or “born from above”, being, as Paul described “a new creation”, they are now not what they were.  They are made alive from the dead. They are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who is given as a comforter and guide but also as a promise – a seal – of our inheritance.  A seal indicates ownership.  It indicates protection.  It says “I stand by this and my authority is keeping it”.  John will later in this letter describe true Christians as those who overcome the world.  Paul promises in Romans 8 that “those that [God] justified, he also glorified”.  It is God that does the keeping of the believer for heaven. Sure, a true believer may fall on his face spiritually, he or she may mess up or get confused.  But like a magnet that believer will return to his Savior, and he will not ultimately deny or leave Him since he is now a member of the family.

 

So what about those who seem like believers but evidently aren’t?  Are they all lying in wait around the church fingering their Snidely Whiplash mustache and whispering “heh heh heh heh” while plotting mischief and mayhem?  No. Remember that Paul described then as “deceiving and being deceived”?  Certainly some know that they are there to fleece the sheep or to cause trouble. Some have been forced to come and are chafing in their pews with disdain. But many others are there for reasons other than a love of Jesus.  They are there because they like the music, or the food, or the conversations, or the fact that most churches (hopefully) are more friendly than the group of people that they met at the park or the people at work and its nice to be around nice people for a change. Or, maybe it’s the tradition of the country, or of the family, to go to church together, and they never questioned it.  Hey, why not, right?  Waking up with an alarm on the weekend may be annoying, but it’s what you do, so to speak.

 

But as John points out, though these people are “among us”, they will not all stay. Many, many people who go to church, sometimes for years, fade away or stop abruptly. We see it all the time, and it’s heartbreaking.  Many who leave do so because they had a bad experience.  Some leave because “the church is full of hypocrites”. Oh really?  Sinners in a church?  Imagine! Seriously, though, I would guess that if you were to point out that their departure just means that “there is only one less hypocrite there now” they wouldn’t take it well.  In the end, there are probably only two main reasons people leave church for good: Either they got mad at someone and their pride keeps them from reconciliation and forgiveness, or, frankly, all that Jesus stuff was just… not very interesting.  Now John is not talking about someone leaving a cult, or moving to another city or joining another local church closer to home, he is talking about those who leave the faith.

 

Note the progression: They were of us, then they left.  They looked like Christians, then they didn’t.  They were excited about church and said all the right things, then they didn’t. Why did God let them leave?  John says “so it would be manifested (made obvious) that they were not of us.”  So, which does more damage – antichrists in the church or outside the church?

Daniel Akins writes: “The greatest dangers to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ are always from within, not from without.  Satan is a master deceiver and strategist who knows that the deployment of a spiritual Trojan Horse can do serious, if not irreparable, damage to the body of Christ.  However, once the damage is done, the antichrists will leave the spiritual battlefield taking with them what captives they can.  Eventually they reveal their true colors and allegiance.  Their departure will almost always be painful and the occasion for tremendous grief. … Alistair Begg says it well: “there are some who share [for a while] our earthly company who do not share our heavenly birth”.[1]

 

So what is the mark of a believer?  You overcome.  You stay.  Even if you change churches for a good and spiritual reason you will immediately seek out another place to hear the word preached and to use you spiritual gifts to bless the body of Christ.  If the story of your life is “no, I no longer go to church because….” then John cannot offer you any assurance. (So, glad you’re here!)

 

 

II  Doctrine of Antichrists (v20-23):

 

The second difference between Christians and antichrists in the church is a doctrinal one.  No, I am not talking about disagreements about the time of the rapture or which bible translation you believe is the best for study! I am talking about the question that Jesus asked the apostles in Matthew 16:

 

Matthew 16:15b "… who do you say that I am?"

 

This is the question that Jesus asks all of us.  The people had said that Jesus was John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets, but Simon Peter gave the right answer:

 

Matthew 16:16b  "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

 

The word Christ is the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew word “Messiah”.  It means “the anointed one”.  Kings and priests were commonly anointed for service, and the coming King and Redeemer that the Old Testament prophets predicted was THE Messiah, THE Christ.  The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Expected One.  Jesus’ response to Peter here is very relevant to our current text. Jesus said to Peter:

 

Matthew 16:17b  "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

 

Jesus made it clear that this knowledge, this bedrock understanding of who Jesus is, is a gift direct from God the Father in heaven.  Nobody comes to the acceptance of this fact of their own accord, from their sinful flesh.  Paul told the Corinthians that the natural state of humanity is spiritual blindness, that they are blinded by the god of this world.  But when God calls a person, He shines a light into their dark soul.  What is this light?  It is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  Anyone who has received that bright revelation of God’s glory in their heart, for real, is never going to replace it with something else.  Paul says that we can be afflicted in every way, persecuted and struck down, but if we have that treasure of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ we will not be crushed, driven to despair, or destroyed by those afflictions.

 

The antichrists have not received this revelation, so their Jesus will be a figment of their own imagination, tailored to their own personal specifications.  They will not answer as Peter did when Jesus asked the apostles “who do you say that I am?”  John here says that they will deny that Jesus is the Christ.  Let’s re-read verses 20 through 23”

 

1 John 2:20-23   ²⁰ But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. ²¹ I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. ²² Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.

 

A Christless Christian does not exist.  And antichrists invent non-biblical Jesuses all the time. Some say that Jesus was a mere man.  Some argue (in direct contradiction to the bible) that Jesus sinned just like we do.  If either of these were true He could not be our redeemer and we will die in our sins and face a terrible judgment.  Some teach that Jesus was an angel that was temporarily given a body.  Islam says Jesus was a great prophet but that He did a switcheroo at the last minute and someone else was crucified in his place.  Some argue that he only swooned on the cross but did not die that day so that He did not need to rise.  Some say that He was crazy, or a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Some even say that he was a regular man who was possessed by the Christ Spirit (or something like that) which left Him when He was on the cross. 

 

Confessing Jesus as the Christ is not just using “Christ” as if it were his last name.  As Calvin says, to confess that Jesus is the Christ is to confess the Christ of the scriptures.  And John says plainly, to deny the Son is to deny the Father.  If you say that Jesus is not the Christ, then you deny the Father and the Son.  When Philip asked Jesus to show him the Father, Jesus replied "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?” (John 14:9)  Anyone who makes up their own Jesus has an empty hope, just like someone who jumps out of an airplane with a few feathers and a pinwheel, thinking he has made a new airplane.  It is foolish and futile.

 

So what about believers?  We have already talked about the enlightening of the soul, but John uses interesting wording in these verses.  In the Greek, John says that “you” (the true believer he is addressing here) have an “anointing” from the Holy One.  Jesus is the Christ (Christos), THE anointed One, and you are also anointed (chrisma) by God.  What is the result?  “you all know .. the truth”.  Not some Christians.  ALL OF YOU.  This knowledge is the birthright of all true believers. Denying it is the mark of antichrists.  Warren Wiersbe writes: “If you will investigate the history of false cults and antichristian religious systems in today’s world, you will find that in most cases their founders started out in a local church!  They were “with us” but not “of us,” so they went out “from us” and started their own groups.

 

 

III   Deception of Antichrists (2:24-27):

 

So, just like Paul said to Timothy, John gives us the way to be safe from the influence of these antichrists. He does so by pointing to the two main weapons we have to safeguard our faith.  What are they?  What has God given us to make us overcomers?  He has given us the scriptures, and he has given us the Holy Spirit.  And the keyword for the rest of this passage is the simple word “abide”.  Let’s read the last four verses and note how often it comes up. Also keep in mind that the word “abide” will connect us to the next part of this letter (which I am scheduled to talk about in about a month) so keep it in mind.

 

1 John 2:24-27   ²⁴ As for you, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. ²⁶ These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ And as for you, the anointing whom you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as He has taught you, abide in Him.

 

Paul said to “hold fast” to what you have been taught.  John says to “abide” in it, or, rather, to let it “abide” in you.  What does that mean?  Well, the word abide (Gr. Menō) means to remain, not to depart, to wait for, to continue to be present.  When I stay in a hotel for one night, I generally take just what I need for the next day out of my suitcase and leave everything else in there.  When I moved into my house, I worked hard to put away everything in the correct drawer, cabinet, or closet so that I could find it over the years and not trip over it.  My commitment to living in a hotel room is minimal – I even try to avoid sitting on any of the furniture in the room that is not recently with a newly washed sheet.  Never know who did what there.  But I am comfortable in my house because I know what has been there since 1987.  A hotel is a fleeting memory, but I abide in my abode.  I am in it for the long haul.

 

Now let’s look again at these four verses.  What do they say about God’s commitment to you?  In verse 25 John says that God has made an amazing promise to you. What is “eternal life”?  Let’s say that there was someone that asked to spend the night at your house while their apartment was being fumigated.  Would that be a huge commitment?  Probably not.  But what if they told you that they had just started looking for lots to build a house on and that they would like to sleep in your living room for the next five years.  How would you respond to that request?  Now imagine that they are rather obnoxious (as all of us are compared to the Holy and Awesome God of heaven – admit it) and you promise that they can stay in your house forever. Now that’s abiding!

 

Going to the beginning of verse 27 we see another part of God’s commitment to his relationship with you. The anointing that we are talking about – the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the pledge of our eternal inheritance, our comforter and guide in the truth – what does it do?  It “abides in you”.  He is there, he has moved in permanently.  All his things are (figuratively) in your closet.  His name is on the lease.  He is paying the bills, forever.  Do you feel the commitment yet?

 

What is our responsibility in response?  Remember that gospel message that brought you to Jesus?  Let it abide in you.  Don’t send it out on the street.  Don’t make it sleep in the garage.  Don’t put it in a tent in the backyard.  Keep it in the dining room where you can feast on it every day.  Use it for wallpaper and read it off of the walls every day.  Don’t let it go.  John’s promise to you if you do?  “You also will abide in the Son and in the Father.”  Isn’t that an amazing good deal?  Now here’s the question: if you were challenged to explain the gospel to the person next to you in church right now and they had to grade your understanding, would the number of years you have spent abiding in the gospel be evident in your response, or would you be unable to even give a simple recitation of the glorious gospel of Christ?

 

Another amazing statement is found in verse 27 – “you have no need for anyone to teach you”.  Did you just think “oh, good!  John says I don’t need to go to bible studies at my church!  I’ve been obeying all this time!” Nope.  That’s not what it means. Ian Hamilton writes: “The risen, ascended Lord has given the gifts of ‘pastors and teachers’ to his church, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ’. Indeed, John is himself writing to instruct his beloved children in the faith.  The point he is making is that true believers, indwelt by God’s Spirit of truth, do not need anyone to tell them how wrong false teaching is: the no that ‘no lie is of the truth’.  Thus the indwelling Holy Spirit sensitizes the child of God to spiritual truth and gives him an ability to discern error when it poses as truth.” [2]

 

Also John says to abide in Him.  Do you talk to Him?  Do you meditate on his word to you?  What percentage of your thoughts were about Jesus over the last week?  Did you look forward to meeting Him each day?  Is He welcome in your house during the day and night?  When you watch TV?  In the car with you when you drive on the freeway?  Do you marvel about God’s attributes and mercy and love in your discussion at communion services, or is finding something spiritual to encourage your brothers and sisters with too difficult so you just discuss your work, pets, tv shows or video games because that comes more naturally?  Do you listen to the voice of the Spirit of God when He gently convicts you of sin, or do you look for a distraction and “quench” his voice?

 

Conclusion

 

Remember, please, that the motive John has is to give his children comfort.  We should come from this message with a stronger understanding of, and hope from, our faith.  If any part of this was hard, remember that all of John’s tests are tests of quality, not quantity.  In chapter three especially we will see a lot of verbs in present participle form.  We all fall down, but Christians’ lives are marked by a preponderance of spiritual fruit rather than deeds of the flesh, especially as we grow and progress in the faith.  We still sin, but not as continually.  We fall, but we get up.  We overcome.  And someday we will be given perfection in holiness.  And hoping for that is probably the best proof of salvation, as we will see in the next passage from this book.

 

If any of this burned us, think of this book in this way:  The church is the bride of Christ.  The book of John is not a divorce manual, it is a marriage manual.  Each of these tests is a helpful guide to lead us all to a perfect marriage – where we will abide forever with Christ.

 

[Next Sermon]

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[1] Christ-Centered Exposition, Exalting Jesus in 1, 2, & 3 John, Daniel L Akin, p50-51

[2] Let’s Study the Letters of John, Ian Hamilton, p29