The Obediance Test (1 John 2:15-17)

From Saturday's Teen Discipleship, studying the tests of faith in 1 John

The more I read the New Testament, the more convinced I am that very early in the history of the church, a false teaching arose that claimed it didn’t matter how you lived, as long as you believed. In Romans 6 Paul wrote that some people taught that it didn’t matter whether or not we keep sinning, because we’re saved by grace alone. Paul calls these people condemned. We know that James says that faith is dead without works. We must have right belief in Jesus, but that’s not all we need. We need right living too. Right belief is confirmed by right living.

We see this in 1 John 2:15-17, read that with me.

John says is very clearly to start in verse 15. He’s not messing around, but he says ‘do not love the world.’ Now, you might think right away, well God loved the world, surely it’s ok for me to. In John 3:16, we’re talking about God’s love of the people in the world. In 1 John 2:15 we’re talking about the corrupt and sinful world system, or ethics, or philosophy. The world that will be condemned at the end of time, like we’re reading about in Revelation at the moment. This verse means, don’t love money, don’ty love success, don’t love pride. Don’t love the world or the things in the world.

Then John tells us why. If you love the world, then the love of the Father is not in you. Ouch! Spurgeon says that if there is no divorce between you and sin, there can be no union between you and Jesus. If you love the world, you don’t love Jesus. If you love the world, in all its sin, all it’s pride, all its opposition to God, you can’t love Jesus. But what’s this got to do with obedience? Well, John is saying that what you love will determine who you obey. If you love the world, and follow the world, and worship the world, then you’ll obey the world. You’ll go to the college with the best chance of getting a good qualification, regardless of how it helps you spiritually. You’ll date or marry based on how it looks to the world, or how your partner makes you fell, regardless of what their heart for God is like. If you love Jesus, if you believe in Him savingly, you’ll love Him, and obey Him. That’s the first reason we shouldn’t love the world, because the world is opposed to God, and you will not obey God if you love the world.

We see the second reason in verse 16. Because the desires of the world do not come from God. We need to follow God’s will, not the worlds will. Look how John describes the world in this verse. Full of wrong desire. Desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, pride in possessions. We know what the desires of the flesh are. 1^st century Ephesus was an immoral city, and so is 21^st century Greenville. How amazingly patient and gracious is God that the sun rose over such an evil city this morning. The desires of the eyes and pride of possessions talk of a different sort of lust, lust for things, lust for money. All these things are the exact opposite of Godliness, purity and contentment. If you are lusting after the flesh, if you’re lusting after material things, you are not going to obey Jesus. You just won’t be able to. You obedience to God’s commands prove that you don’t love the world. Your obedience to the world’s commands prove that you don’t love Jesus. Good children obey their father, they’re not led astray by what looks pretty and tempting, but is ultimately deadly. So reason number one not to love the world is that it prevents us from loving the Father and obeying Him, and reason number two is that the world is totally opposed to God.  

We see the third reason in verse 17. Look at that with me. Again, John pulls no punches. Why should you obey God not the world? Because the world is dying. And so are the desires that go along with it. No materialistic pride in Heaven. No immorality in Heaven. No obeying the world in Heaven. It’s passing away. We need to remember this, this is something we need God to remind us of every day. The world doesn’t look like it’s passing away does it? It looks pretty permanent. Not only the buildings and the cities, but the ideas. We’re constantly being told by culture that we are moving forward, things are getting better and will continue to get better without end. No one in world leadership is focusing on the end of the world, and preparing their followers to be ready. But that’s what Jesus was always doing, and that’s what John is doing here. The world is not on an infinite cycle, it’s not an unstoppable machine, it has a definite end. And only one thing will last forever.

The children of God. Those who obey God, they live forever. Those who do what God does, those who love Him and obey Him not the world, they live forever. Not the great cities or ideas or institutions, people who obey God. It’s simple. This world will end. In the other one of John’s books that we’re looking at at the moment in Sunday School we see very clearly that there is a set time when Jesus will return and wrap up the world. Don’t build your life around what will be washed away. Don’t build your house on the sand, be the wise man, who builds his house on the rock, by obeying God’s Word.

So do you obey the world, or do you obey the world. Look at 5:1-3 with me as we finish up. ‘this is the love of God, that we obey His commandments.’ John is so tough and so straightforward. This is loving God, obeying Him. You can believe all the right things, but it doesn’t count for anything, it doesn’t matter at all, if what you claim you believe doesn’t prove itself with obedience to God. Like the kids song goes, ‘obedience is the very best way to show that you believe.’ It really is.

Ressurected and Returning

I'm been thinking a little bit about the way books of the Bible end recently. We're coming to the end of our series in Mark in teen church, Gethsemane on Wednesday, and then five weeks later chapter 16, which poses some problems. I guess everyone who preaches through Mark has to come to a decisions as to what to do about the double ending. Particularly when the last thing you want to do is rob young Christians of their confidence in Scripture.

It wasn't the end of Mark that grabbed by attention this week, but the ending of 2nd Kings. Second Kings is a terrible sad tale of immorality and decline, both personally and nationally with very few bright spots. Probably written at the time, maybe as the official historical record, and then collected some time during or after the captivity, it shows how the northern kingdom fell further and further into the sins of Jeroboam, and how the southern Kings looked more like Adam's sons that David's.

Josiah is a great bright spot. Cut to the heart by what he discovered in the law, he wasn't content  to let his reformation by personal, but removed all the altars of false worship from the land. I like the imagine him riding around on a horse, with a sledge hammer in one hand and a map in the other. And maybe that's how it happened, but maybe not. After he's gone though, the decline is quick, and Judah, God's leaders of God's people, find themselves in Babylon.

Second Kings, and, to a greater extent, second Chronicles exist to remind the exiles, and the returners, that the LORD hasn't failed, in fact, it's because He is the one true God that they find themselves in this mess, and the ending of both these books go a long way to show us that.

How does 2nd Kings end? 'Evil-merodach (what a sen.sational name!) king of Babylon...graciously freed Jehoiachin, King of Judah from prison...and every day of his life he dined regularly at the kings table.' So what does King Evil do? He releases the King of Judah from prison, clothes him and feeds him, every day. He resurrects him, essentially. And the King of God's people eats in the presence of his enemies. Everyone in the Old Testament is either Adam or Jesus and here's Jesus. Resurrected after catastrophe, freely dining at the Kings table. 'Faithful Hebrews', says the writer of 2nd Kings, 'it's going to be ok. Look for the resurrected Son of David.'

Second Chronicles ends with an even bigger surprise. To fulfill what was spoken through Jeremiah the LORD stirred the heart of King Cyrus to let the people of Judah go home and build a house for God. Wait...what? Cyrus is going to let his exiles go, and rebuild a temple to a foreign God? That's extraordinary. Remember, faithful labourers at the walls, that you rebuild because God has pout you there, and it doesn't matter what Nehemiah's opponents or Ezra's intermarriers so, God will succeed, because He is the LORD, the only God.

But. The Temple is rebuilt and still the people sin. The people return, and Judah is an insignificant province. No one cowers before it, no one sends tribute, silver is not counted as stone. We need another resurrected King, and we need another returning temple.

Just as the end of the Kings, and the end of the Chronicles (which was organized to be the original end of the Old Testament) reminded Judah that the LORD was sovereign but that this wasn't the return to come, and this wasn't the King to come, so they remind us to look to Jesus. The resurrected King of God's people, the rebuilt meeting place, who brings us to the Father.

Real Security

The cruel man desires to be feared, because of his cruelty, but who is to be feared, except the one God? What can be taken away from your power? Who can rob You of Your power, and how and where would they do it? The enticements of the sensual pretend to be love, yet what is more enticing than your love? Nor is any love more wholesome and refreshing than the love of your truth, for it is bright and beautiful above all things. Curiosity creates a desire for knowledge, sometimes concealed under the covering of simplicity and ignorance, yet there is no being that has a true simplicity as yours and none are as innocent as you. Thus a sinner is harmed by his own sinful deeds.

Human laziness pretends to want to rest, yet where is rest except in You Lord?

Luxury of life desires to be called plenty and abundance, but you are the fulness and unfailing abundance of incorruptible joy.

Extravagant philanthropy displays a show of liberality, but you are the most lavish giver of all good things.

Avarice desires to possess all things, but you possess all things.

Envy contends for excellence, but what is more excellent than you?

Anger seeks revenge, but who is more vengeful than you?

Fear shrinks back from the unfamiliar and sudden changes that threaten what he loves, he is afraid for his security and the security of those he loves, but what can happen that is unfamiliar or sudden to you? Or who can deprive you of what you love? Where can real security be found except in you? Grief mourns for the things it loved which have been taken from it, but nothing can be taken from you.

Augustine's Confessions, 1971 Ed. P 14

Jesus and Joy (1 John 1:1-4)

This was one of the last letters written in the NT, sometime between 90 and 95AD, so John would have had to have been in his 80s at least when he wrote it. In these first four verses, his introduction to his letter, we see what he’s writing about in verses 1 and 2, why he’s writing in verses 3 and 4, and we’ll see why we should trust him as we take an overview of this verses all together.

Let’s read verses 1 and 2 together. John is writing about what he calls ‘the word of life.’ That’s the name of his message. Look at what we learn about the word of life from this verses. It was eternal, it could be seen and heard and touched. It doesn’t sound like a normal message does it? John starts his letter by reminding us that he spent time with Jesus. He heard His teaching, rested his head against Him at the last supper, he saw him every day. John was writing to a city where people were teaching that Jesus wasn’t really a man, that He was just a spirit. Right from the beginning we see John fighting these ideas off, and making a big deal about the fact that Jesus was a real man with a real body.

John goes on in verse 2. This life, this message, this word was made manifest, that means it appeared to them. It was physical, it had skin and teeth and bones. It was a real man. Maybe we don’t understand why John is making such a big deal about this yet, but we will do as we keep studying this letter. John says in verse 2 that this is not just a word of life, but it’s a message about eternal life. So what John  wants to tell us about isn’t something that will just make us happy in the here and now, but something that will impact us forever.

So John’s message is physical, and eternal, and divine. Look at the end of the verse 2 with me. ‘which was with the Father.’ The message that John is proclaiming comes from Heaven. He’s not interested in adding to the symphony of ideas already in Ephesus. He’s not interested in beging another famous teacher with another idea to gain followers. He is interested in God the Father. This is what sets him apart from the false teachers in Ephesus, and this is what sets the Bible apart from the rest of religion and philosophy. The message was with the Father. It’s physical, it’s eternal and it’s divine.

We need to pay attention to it.

Why did John write this letter and share this message. Verses 3 and 4 gives us two reasons. Read those verses with me. See that first reason in verse 3. He’s writing to the church, and we’re reading this now, that that they, and we, might have fellowship. Fellowship with us, John says, that means so that they can be united together in something bigger than themselves. That their friendship and partnership can be based on faith in God. But he makes it even bigger. John writes about his physical, eternal, divine message so that we might have fellowship with God. So that we might have a relationship with God. So that we might be saved, in slightly more modern language.

John says this fellowship, this relationship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. We know that Jesus is the message that John has been wiring about. That Jesus is physical and eternal and divine. That it’s Jesus that brings us into fellowship with God the Father. This is why 1 John is important, because it shows us how to have eternal life. There’s nothing more important that that!

What does this phrase, ‘fellowship with God,’ teach us about eternal life? Fellowship just means friendship or having a joint interest with someone. So let me ask the question this way, do you have a joint interest with God? That’s what John is trying to get us to understand. Fellowship with God is only based around Jesus. You can’t have fellowship with God based on your church attendance or Bible reading or witnessing. You just can’t. The Father’s primary interest in the world is Jesus. Is that true of you? The Father loves Jesus. Is that true of you? And fellowship involves conversation. You can’t have a relationship with someone if you never talk to them. John writes this letter so that we would understand that a relationship with the physical, eternal, divine Jesus is a two way thing. We talk to Him in prayer and He talks to us in His word. We present our requests to Him and He gives us our commands.

So how is your fellowship with God? How’s your conversation? Are you listening to His voice? If you’re not listening to the voice of the physical, eternal, divine one, then whose voice are you listening to? Who are you having fellowship with?

The second reason John writes is found in verse 4. Look at the end of that verse; ‘so that your joy may be full.’ There is something in a relationship with Christ that produces joy. Even more than that, one of the best evidences of a real relationship with Christ, or of real fellowship with God, is that it produces joy. The word used for our there can also mean your. So John is writing that our joy, and your joy may be complete. John finds his joy in ministry in the Christian growth of those he loves. Why else would he write this letter? I find my joy in ministry in the Christian growth of those I love, you guys, otherwise, why would I be here on a Saturday morning? And your fellowship with God produces joy. I keep saying this, but that’s because it’s so important. Psalm 16:11 is not lying! Neither is John. Do you want joy? Then come to Jesus, and have fellowship with Him.

Finally, we know we can trust John. He loves this church, he calls them ‘little children,’ he has such affection for them. He walked and talked and ate and wept with Jesus. He ended up in a lonely exile for the sake of this message. We can trust him.

Let me conclude by asking you some questions How is your joy? Are you enjoying your relationship with Jesus? Do you like Jesus? Not do you love Him, but do you like Him? How is your fellowship with God? Are you listening to Him, are you talking to Him? If your joy is weak it’s probably because you’re not spending enough time with Him, you’re being led astray by the lies of the world. And finally, are you sure that you believe the real Jesus? The physical Jesus. The eternal Jesus. The divine Jesus. Helping us to grow in fellowship with Him is the reason John writes.

God's Lavish Love (Matt Chandler sermon jam)

Holy Spaces

'I stood in the room where Nate Saint's wife heard about her husband's death, can you imagine?'

He had goosebumps telling me. I had goosebumps hearing it. Why do some spaces evoke such emotion in us? Why do some piles of bricks and mortar make us feel something?

I've been thinking recently about church buildings. Alistair Begg said, in a message on mark 13, that 'God is no more present inside a church building than he is in the gents toilet...' To which i want to say, 'yes...but.' Yes, God is omnipresent, and nowhere more really there than anywhere else. (how's that for a sentence!) But there is something special about church buildings isn't there?

Why do we whisper in a cathedral? Why does it feel peaceful to sit in an old church building? Why did Moses have to take off His sandals? is there such a thing as a holy place? Sports fans obviously think so. There is something special about Adams Park. The looking Frank Adams stand on the far side, the loomed over old main stand housing the dressing rooms and the club offices. The Valley End with it's once blue crash barriers, and the away end (or the new away end, depending on how old you are!) For supporters of a certain age, there's something special about the carpark at Wycombe General Hospital, because that's where Wycombe Wanderers used to play. (not on the carpark, they've paved over it! Criminally.) 

Yes...but, you say. I know, Wycombe Wanderers are actually, really, spatially present at Adams Park in  a way that they're not anywhere else. God isn't. God doesn't live at church, you know that. But...but there is something special about the building where we meet Him isn't there?

Right now that building is empty, dark, quiet and probably a bit stuffy because, even in North Carolina, no one expects the weather to warm up forty degrees in a week! By 1040 on Sunday morning it will be filling with people ready to worship, and hear the Bible preached. The church has entered the building. 

So maybe it's not so much the places that are special, but what we do there. There was nothing intrinsically sacred about the burning bush, but something sacred was about to happen. God isn't more present in the church building than the gents, or the supermarket, but i don't gather to worship with my brothers and sisters at Walmart. And this applies whether you meet in a thousand year old cathedral, and thirty year old church building or a brand new movie theatre. God is not more present, but you are.

So we need to be careful in our attempts to 'de-spiritualise' spaces. We're not walking out of the Temple marveling at the stones and lattice work, we're just gathering to worship. God is not more present in these spaces, but we are. 

The Mark of the Father (Revelation 14:1-5)

I think it helps our understanding of Revelation if we constantly remind ourselves that it was written, and is written to Christians under intense persecution. Christian dad who'd lost their jobs. Christian mothers who couldn't feed their kids, Christian churches whose leaders had been arrested, or had mysteriously 'disappeared.' I think John uses the persecution of the church under Nero as a type of the persecution to come. Just like in Mark 13 Jesus uses the destruction of the Temple as a type of the calamity to fall on the world before His return.

I also think that Revelation teaches that such days will befall the church again before the end, so that whatever encouragement first century readers would have found in this book, we must also find, and encourage ourselves with.

Imagine what it would have been like to be a struggling Christian when you heard chapter 14:1-5 for the first time. All around you see death and torment. But then you hear that Jesus is on mount Zion, totally in charge of history, and that he has His people with Him. His people are sealed, or marked, not with the mark of the beast, but with the name of God the Father. In verse 3 we hear God’s people singing a song of celebration, because Jesus has won. You don't celebrate defeats. History is written by the winners, and hear the winders as they write history. This is a snapshot of what’s going on in heaven while the Church is being persecuted. Those who stay faithful to Jesus are rewarded, death is not the end for them.

 

What do the faithful 144,000 look like?  We met them previously in chapter 7, where we saw that those sealed by God will not yield to the temptation to come. There are four things that mark our God's people, sealed by the Father,
 

First of all, they have not defiled themselves with women. This is obviously symbolic language for worldly impurity. They have not been overcome by immorality, or perversion or evil. They are pure in their devotion to Jesus as a husband is to his wife. They have a singular zeal for Jesus which remains undimmed by the trials and temptations of living in the world.

Secondly, they follow the lamb wherever he goes. We know Jesus is the lamb, and that He commands us through His Word, the Bible. I love this picture. Jesus is the Lamb that we follow, not the shepherd here. He is the Lamb of God who we behold. He is the one who will lead us well, because He is the one who laid down His life for us. Do you follow Him wherever He goes?

Thirdly, they have been redeemed. No work of their own got them their, they have been saved by Jesus death, not by being a nice person. That’s what gets people to Heaven. Revelation is brutally clear that the world is not broken up into Christians and mean people. The blood of Christ is the great dividing line. Are you trusting, not in your Bible reading or church attendance, not even in your grace wrought good works, but in the blood of Christ.

And finally, they tell the truth. While the dragon, the beast and the false prophet, while the media and the culture are filling the world with lies, the people of God are telling the truth. We tell the truth about marriage. We tell the truth about abortion. In days to come we'll tell the truth about the false prophet. We share our faith. 

So what is the mark of the Father? Faithful, passionate, spreading, obedience to Jesus. This is the mark of God the Father, that which glories His Son, and serves His Church.

Spring Broken

It's been spring break this week. Rachel's been off work, and i've been able to spend some more time with her. It's been lovely. I love the busy rhythms of normal life, but i also enjoy a break from time to time. And extra time with Rachel is never a bad thing.

In the mornings i've been prepping a series of messages in 1 John for Teen Discipleship which starts in a couple of weeks. John Piper described 1 John as 'uncannily relevant for our time.' John Macarthur writes at length about the diverse melting pot of beliefs in Ephesus at the time John wrote. This study has helped me and edified me, in the way that sermon prep should. I love the toughness and tenderness of the beloved apostle. Don't sin! But if you do, we have an advocate! Don't call God a liar! But come and be His child. This toughness and tenderness is what we need in the church today isn't it? Tough on sin, tender on sinners. Hold out Christ as all light with no darkness, and holding out Christ as our advocate, who bled to free us.

Also, apart from the first message on the chapter 1:1-4 and the last message on 5:18-21, i'm preaching more thematically than verse by verse, looking at the three tests of the Christian faith. Belief in Christ, obedience to God and love for the brothers. I'm looking forward to growing as a preacher in this area.

I've also been reading and enjoying/convicted by The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter. Reading this on the back of Paul Tripp's Dangerous Ministry has been really helpful, and like i say, convicting. The cool breeze of the centuries has given me a fresh perspective on pastoral and preaching ministry, on my relationship with God and my church.

Finally, a wise man remarked this week that 'everyone in the Bible is either Adam or Christ.' Absalom, tragically, is a type of Adam, but David is, as we know, as type of Christ. We see this so clearly in the close of 2 Samuel. God turns His face against the House of David, and as a result, there is a place that man can meet with God. You don't have to read Christ into the Old Testament, in fact, He's so obviously there, you have to try to read Him out!

This is not the Son you're Looking For

The Bible is a book of promises. Or, perhaps better, the Bible is  a book that fulfills a promise. The promise is that there would be a son, born to a woman, who would defeat the serpent. The Bible is the story of a search for this offspring who will crush the serpent's head.

Everyone we meet in the Bible is either a type of this hero (the good Kings, Noah, Moses, Joshua, Nehemiah, the bridegroom) or an antitype of this hero (the bad kings, Eli and Phineas, Cain). The story of Absalom is a particularly good and particularly painful example of this.

David wanted to build a house for God. This was a reasonable and Godly thought. Why should I live in a palace of cedar when God lives in a tent. God turns this desire around and tells David that He's the house-builder, and that someone from David's house will sit on the throne forever. If David was a good student of Moses, his mind would have gone to the promise to Eve of the serpent crusher, and then to the promise to Judah of a son with the scepter always beneath his feet.

Along comes Absalom. Is he the son? The early signs are not good, and frankly they only get worse. Absalom is actually an anti-type of the Son of David, and as the antitype not only does he look a bit like us, he also teaches us, by contrast, a little bit more about who to look for in the real Son of David.

Absalom fells the city following the incident with his sister and half brother. David graciously brings him home, and what does Absalom do? Immediately sets up shop by the city gate to undermine the authority of his father. David holds out his hand in forgiveness, but as soon as this forgiveness is enjoyed, Absalom takes advantage of it.

Is this not how we operate so often? We blaspheme grace by treating it as license. We come to God in contrition, and then turn from God in sin. We enjoy forgiveness, and then we sin again. And when I say 'we', understand that I mostly mean 'i.' Absalom shines alight into our hearts like the law, and we don't like what we find there.

Then, a few chapters later, we find the Son of David hanging in a tree. All sort so flashing lights should be going off here. Absalom is killed, against the commands of his father, and his father mourns, and division is wrought. Centuries later, the real Son of David will hang on a tree, and die at His Father's command. This death will not bring division between the Father and His people, but peace.

Absalom teaches us about Christ though contrast, he shows us what we are, and what we need. In the words of Nathan, 'we are the man' who defies and spoils the good King's offer of forgiveness. But Absalom is not the son we're looking for. He adds to the picture with darker shades that make the light shine brighter. As we turn the page on Absalom, we turn our hearts to Jesus, who gives us hope with His grace, and peace in His death.