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Will Congregation please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word, and this evening
we’re going to consider a short passage from the Apostle John’s first epistle.
So 1 John chapter 2 verses 3 through 6, you’ll find that on page 609 in your pew Bible.
I’m going to begin reading at verse 1 to fill out the context a little bit.
If you study 1 John, you will recognize and understand how important it is to read this
epistle with a view to its context, reading it in context.
If you read it superficially, it seems like John kind of jumps from one thing to another,
but there is a cohesion about this epistle if you study it carefully.
So 1 John chapter 2 verses 3 through 6, again I’ll read verses 1 through 6.
Hear the word of God.
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world.
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar.
And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word.
In him truly the love of God is perfected.
By this we may know that we are in him.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word.
Again Heavenly Father, it is a privilege to hear your word and grant us grace, Lord, to
receive it with reverence and awe this evening as we consider this portion of Holy Scripture.
Grant me wisdom and grace, Lord, to speak it forth and declare it with clarity and power.
Set a guard over my lips that I might speak only that which is faithful to you and edifying
to your people.
We pray these things Heavenly Father, in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, Amen.
You may be seated.
The title of my sermon this evening is Knowing That We Know Him.
And I’d encourage you, especially the children, to listen for the four key words in my sermon
this evening.
How do we know that we have come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ?
To state it another way, how do we know that we are truly saved?
Or to use the language that the Apostle John uses in our passage for this evening, how
do we know that we have come to know him?
These kinds of questions are important questions because they are getting at the issue of the
assurance of our salvation.
How do we have that personal subjective sense of assurance of our salvation?
How do we gain that assurance of salvation?
Is that even possible?
That is to say, how can we have assurance and certainty that we are in a saved condition
in spiritual fellowship with God and thus are on our way to Heaven rather than separated
from fellowship with God and therefore under God’s holy wrath and on our way to Hell?
The issue of assurance of salvation is a very personal issue for many believers, perhaps
even for some of us here this evening.
Perhaps some of you have even wrestled with and struggled with your own sense of assurance
of salvation.
And it’s a very personal issue because it has to do not only with matters pertaining
to our personal happiness in this present life, but it also has to do with our eternal
destiny in the life to come and also our ability to enjoy spiritual fellowship with God in
the present.
It’s difficult to enjoy the fullness of spiritual and saving fellowship with God if you are
in doubt about what your standing is before God and whether you are under his grace or
under his wrath.
The question of assurance of salvation is a question that has eternal ramifications.
And it is a question that John’s original readers were apparently wrestling with as
well.
For in this epistle, John the apostle indicates that one of his main reasons for writing this
letter, this epistle, was to strengthen and to fortify these struggling believers in their
assurance of salvation.
In fact, one of the purpose statements that we find in John is found in the last chapter.
If you turn to chapter 5 and look at verse 13, John writes this.
He’s explaining one of the reasons why he is written.
He says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God.
Let me pause there.
He’s writing to believers or unbelievers?
Well, no, he’s writing to believers.
I write to you who believe in the name of the Son of God.
He’s writing to Christians.
Why?
That you may know that you have eternal life.
Not that you might hope so, guess so, wish so, but so that you may know that you have
eternal life.
The implication, one of the implications of this purpose statement is that there were
some among the Johannine congregations, those congregations over which he had apostolic
oversight, who were beginning to have doubts about their salvation.
And so John is writing to them this very pastorally oriented epistle to strengthen and fortify
their assurance of salvation.
Now as we study the contents of 1 John, if you were to take the time to read through
John and study it carefully, it would seem, you will discover that it would seem that
John’s original readers, that is to say the members of John’s church or churches that
are under his apostolic oversight, had probably had the assurance of their salvation shaken
because of the claims of certain heretics and false teachers who had left John’s church
and who were seeking to draw John’s readers with them into their heresy.
And so, for example, in chapter 2 verse 18, we are told this, children, it is the last
hour and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come.
There are Antichrists, those who are preaching false doctrine about Christ and many of them
have come to John’s churches, therefore we know that it is the last hour and then he
goes on to say this about them in verse 19.
He says, they went out from us, in other words, they were part of the Johannine church or
churches but they went out, they departed.
It’s not just that they went from one biblical Orthodox church to another, that they transferred
their membership.
They left the church.
They abandoned the church because they had abandoned the faith they once professed.
They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us, they would
have continued with us but they went out that it might be complained that they all are not
of us.
And so, again, these are the folks that John is contending with and seeking to fortify
his readers against, in terms of fortifying them against the heresy that these false teachers
and Antichrists, as he calls them, were propagating and seeking to draw John’s readers toward.
Again, apparently, these false teachers claimed special insider knowledge of God.
Perhaps they claimed some kind of mystical, super spiritual knowledge that elevated them
to a level of spiritual superiority.
There’s an emphasis on knowing God, knowing in the sense of special enlightenment that
they seemed to present themselves as.
We have special heightened knowledge in the Greek, it’s gnosis, from which we get the
term Gnostic.
The Gnostics were heretics and Gnosticism did not arise in its full-fledged form until
the second century but the early church Gnostics believed that they had special insight, special
insider knowledge that elevated them above the ordinary believer.
And so, again, this is the case with these heretics that John is seeking to counteract.
And so by implication, their false teaching suggested that the Christians who had remained
Orthodox in their gospel faith and who continued in the membership of John’s church did not
have this personal experiential saving knowledge of God, or at least they did not have that
saving knowledge of God to the same degree or level as the heretics claimed for themselves.
And this was causing the believers in John’s church or churches to begin to doubt their
standing and their knowledge of Christ.
In response to these proto-Gnostics, if you will, and their claims to superior spiritual
insight, John, under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, pens this next section of his epistle here
in our passage for today as he continues to confront this heresy and to settle and
strengthen the assurance of his readers.
And so, again, we’re going to focus particularly on verses three through six.
And so that raises the question, how can we know that we have come to know God?
Well, John tells us very plainly in verse three.
We can know that we have come to know God if we keep His commandments.
We can know that we’ve come to know God if we keep His commandments.
Again, look at verse three.
It says, And by this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commandments.
Now, let me pause there.
For the sensitive believer, for the Christian who knows the sinfulness of their own heart,
this can actually be disturbing.
This statement can actually, instead of fortifying their faith, instead of strengthening
their assurance, can actually cause them to doubt their faith.
Because after all, if the only way that we can come to know that we have come to know
Him, if the only way that we can have assurance that we have a saving knowledge of Christ
is if we keep His commandments, well, who of you keeps the commandments of God perfectly?
Who of us loves the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and
loves our neighbor as ourselves?
We all fall short, even as Christians, as born again Christians.
We love God.
We’ve received a new heart, a new spirit.
We desire a new disposition.
We desire to live in obedience and holiness.
And yet we know that we don’t love God perfectly.
And there’s a sense in which if you don’t love God perfectly, you don’t love Him as
He requires of you.
God’s demands in the original covenant of works was what?
Perfect personal and entire obedience.
And even the most sanctified Christian does not love God perfectly, fully, as we will
love Him in glory.
And so that raises questions that this this matter of how to understand John’s statement
here requires us to ask some hard questions.
If you’re a good Bible student, an attentive Bible student, then you will ask probing
questions of what you are reading.
And when you come across something that seems odd or that doesn’t quite jive with your
understanding of other scriptures, it’s time to ask the hard questions.
So what questions do we need to ask as we approach verse three?
Well, first of all, we need to ask ourselves, what does John mean when he talks about
knowing God?
In verse three, it says, and by this, we know that we have come to know Him.
What kind of knowledge is he talking about?
Well, the Greek term is gnosko.
And as John uses that term, he’s talking about an experiential knowledge of our
standing with God.
In other words, a saving knowledge of God, of God, not simply an intellectual knowledge
or theological knowledge of God, as important as sound theology and intellectual
aspects of the faith are.
This is more than just knowing about God and having your catechism memorized and
having all of your i’s dotted and all of your t’s crossed when it comes to doctrine.
This is talking about knowing God in a personal, saving, living manner.
So how do we know that we know God, not just intellectually, not just in terms of
correct theology, but in the sense of saving knowledge?
Well, John says we know it if we keep His commandments.
But what probing question do we need to ask as we read this terminology, keeping
His commandments?
Well, we need to ask ourselves, what does John mean?
As John uses this terminology, what does he mean by keeping His commandments?
The term commandments here is the Greek term entolos.
What are these entolos, these commandments?
Is John here referring to the moral commandments of God, such as we find
summarized in the Ten Commandments?
My suspicion is that many Christians, when they read passages like this, that’s what
they think. That’s automatically where they go to.
Oh, what John is saying is that I can know that I have a saving knowledge of God if
I’m obedient, if I keep the commandments.
But again, that gets us back to the issue, the problem.
None of us perfectly obeys God.
Even the most sanctified saint falls short every moment of every day.
There’s a sense in which you and I never stop this side of glory.
We never stop sinning.
Because we never love God perfectly.
We never love our neighbor as ourselves.
We are pursuing holiness.
If you’re born again, you seek to walk after a new obedience.
You are daily repentant and believing, but you don’t keep the commandments, at least
not at the level required by the covenant of works.
So again, what’s John referring to?
Is this referring to the moral commands or to something else or perhaps something more?
In other words, how is John using this terminology of commandments?
What does he mean when he says we know that we know him if we keep his commandments?
Well, we need to learn.
We need to understand how John uses his terms in John’s writings.
We have numerous writings of John in the New Testament, the Gospel of John.
We have first, second and third John, the epistles of first, second and third John.
And we have the Book of Revelation.
And when we survey his writings, we get a better sense of how he’s using his own terminology.
And so in John’s writings, John uses terms like word, truth, commandments, almost he
uses these terms almost interchangeably.
We see that even in the immediate context of our passage for this evening.
And so it’s easy to isolate verse three from the from the context.
But we must not do that.
After all, he says in verse three, and by this, we know that we’ve come to know him
if we keep his commandments.
Well, what does that mean?
Well, skip down to verse five.
He goes on to say in verse in verse five.
You just get there.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walks.
So we’re talking about walking with the Lord.
We’re talking about keeping his word.
Verse five, it says, whoever keeps his word.
So to obey his commandments is to keep his word.
And to keep his word means what?
Well, again, go back to chapter one, verse seven in verse chapter one, verse seven, it
says this, but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with
one another and the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin.
You see what I’m trying to say here and what I’m trying to get at.
John uses these different terms to refer from different angles to the same reality.
So to obey his commandments means to keep his word, which means to walk in the light,
which also means to to abide in him and so forth.
So whatever John means by keeping his commandments, it appears to mean practically
the same thing in his writings as walking in the light, keeping his word and abiding
in him, which is basically getting at faith to keep his commandments is to believe the
gospel and having believed the gospel to begin living out the implications of that
gospel in your life.
And this is so important because there’s one error in the history of the church that is
very destructive and it is the error of perfectionism.
Perfectionism is a heresy or that says that that this side of glory, it is possible for
the true believer to become entirely sanctified, to get to a point in your walk with Christ
where you have stopped sinning, where you can perfectly obey God’s commandments.
Perfectionism comes in different forms.
It comes in the form that it exists in in Wesleyanism and Arminian Wesleyan Arminianism
and so forth.
But reform teaching has rightly and historically rejected perfectionism and recognizes
that the life of the believer is a constant ongoing battle between the flesh and the
spirit, between the principle of the old nature in Adam and the new nature in Christ.
The flesh and the spirit war against each other.
And so I bring up perfectionism because if you read verse three with a perfectionistic
lens, it’s going to lead you to despair.
A perfectionistic reading of this passage would be a gross misreading of this passage
because it would be interpreting this passage out of context.
After all, in chapter one, verse five through chapter two, verse two, John so clearly refutes
perfectionism and recognizes the ongoing presence of sin and disobedience in our lives as
believers. And I know sometimes I read this in the morning service as part of the
assurance of salvation, the words of the declaration of pardon, the words of assurance.
But back in chapter one, verse eight, it says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves and the truth is not in us.
So if you’re a perfectionist, if you believe that you are entire that you’ve achieved
entire sanctification, that you’re no longer capable of sinning.
Well, God’s word here in chapter one, verse eight says you’ve deceived yourself.
The truth is not in you.
But then it goes on to say, if we confess and he’s writing to believers, he’s not writing
to unbelievers, calling them to conversion.
He’s writing to believers. He says, if we, we believers confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And then again, this he rails against any perfectionistic notions.
In verse 10, if we say we’ve not sinned, we make him a liar.
He says we’ve sinned.
His word condemns us in our sin.
If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
That word is the word of the gospel.
We haven’t understood the gospel.
My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
He is the propitiation, the satisfaction for our sins and not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole world.
We need to read all of that.
We need to bring all of that to our understanding of verse three, where John says,
and by this, we’ve come to know him if we keep his commandments.
Again, let us remember that John’s concern here in this epistle and in this passage of
his epistle is to strengthen his readers assurance and to fortify their faith in the
face of false teachers.
His purpose is not to shake up or undermine their assurance by preaching perfectionism.
In this statement in verse three, if it’s interpreted to mean that we must perfectly
obey the Ten Commandments in order to be assured of our salvation, then guess what that
means? That means that none of us can ever know that we know him.
Not even John himself could know that he knows him.
So how, again, do we understand this keeping of the commandments?
Well, there’s two basic possibilities here in light of everything that’s been said.
First of all, if John is speaking primarily about the moral commandments of God, as
summarized in the Ten Commandments, then he certainly does not mean that we believers
keep the commandments perfectly or that we must keep the commandments perfectly in order
to have assurance of our salvation, since such perfect obedience is impossible.
This side of glory, this side of our glorification, but rather what he means is that
our heart disposition and lives are oriented toward obedience.
Those who are truly converted will, in the words of our standards, will walk after a
new obedience. They’ll seek to pursue new obedience.
In other words, faith in Christ, a living, saving faith in Christ and in the gospel is
effective in bearing spiritual fruit in our lives so that we strive to love God and strive
to love our brethren. If this is what John means, then if you look at your life and you
see that the gospel has impacted you in a way that that now you desire to love God and
obey God and live under Christ’s lordship and you are are seeking to walk faithfully
with the Lord Jesus, even though you fail daily and stumble and daily need to confess your
sins, if that is you, if you’re desiring to walk after a new obedience and pursuing
Christ, then you can know that you know him.
Another possibility is that John uses the terminology of keeping his commandments as
basically another way of saying, believing the gospel and seeking to live out the
gospel’s implications.
And of course, one of the gospel’s implications would include wanting to obey the moral
requirements of God’s word.
But the primary focus in this case would be on trusting in Christ and on the outflow of
that trust in Christ.
And my view is that this second view is probably more in line with John’s terminology.
And so I think this is probably the correct way to understand it.
When he says we keep his commandments, you can know that you know him if you keep his
commandments. That means you can know that you know him if you believe the gospel, confess
the gospel and seek to live out the implications of the gospel in your life.
So what are some of the takeaways or lessons that we can glean from verse three in
particular? Well, first of all, we learn in John’s epistle and in this passage that
assurance of salvation is possible.
And this is important to stress because there are some professedly Christian traditions
that deny that assurance of salvation.
This side of glory is possible for a perfect example of that would be the Roman Catholic
Church. According to Roman Catholic teaching, if you believe that your eternal salvation
is an absolute certainty, if you have full assurance of your eternal salvation, then you
are guilty of the sin of presumption.
Now, to be fair to our Roman Catholic friends and what their church teaches, the Council
of Trent, for example, does affirm that the true believer can have a strong hope of
salvation and can live with with that hope.
But in terms of having a full infallible assurance of salvation, no, only only if you
receive that assurance by a special revelation of God or if you’re basically very close to
sainthood, as Roman Catholicism defines sainthood, can you have full assurance of
salvation. But my friends, in fact, the scriptures teach and John very clearly teaches
that assurance of salvation is possible.
Indeed, it is ideal.
It’s interesting to me if I am in a conversation with a Roman Catholic over the issue of
assurance of salvation, I would take them to First John 5 13.
And again, I just remind you of this.
I know I read it earlier in the sermon.
But again, John says, 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 other words.
And so think about it. The Roman Catholic Church says you can’t know that’s the sin of
presumption. Well, it’s presumptuous not to believe the word of God.
The word of God says you can know.
So it’s either Rome or it’s the word of God.
What are you going to choose when it comes to the issue of assurance of salvation?
Assurance of salvation is indeed possible.
Indeed, assurance of salvation ought to be the normal Christian experience.
You know, God, our loving Heavenly Father, he doesn’t want his children walking and
living in the dark about their standing with him.
Imagine a child who lives in a household where she never knows whether her parents
really love her, whether she’s really part of the household.
What would you call parents who who’d never affirmed to their child that their love for
that child never made them feel safe and secure in that household?
We would call those abusive parents.
Our Heavenly Father is not an abusive father.
He indeed wants us to know that we are in him, that we are safe in him.
And so, again, as chapter five, verse 13 shows.
So, dear listener, do you trust Christ?
Do you rely upon him for your salvation?
Then by the grace of God, you may know that you know him.
And by the way, one thing I forgot to mention regarding the interpretation that I’ve
offered, you know, if you skip down to verse seven, John writes this, beloved, notice
his pastoral loving tone as he addresses these believers.
He’s they are his beloved, beloved.
I’m writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the
beginning. And what is this old commandment?
He explains. He says the old commandment is the word that you have heard.
When John uses the term word, he’s either talking about Christ, the living word, or
he’s talking about the gospel.
So the way in John’s terminology, the old the commandment in chapter two, verse seven,
the old commandment equals the word, which equals the gospel.
So, again, we may know that we know him and we also learn in this passage that gospel
faith, a true and living, saving faith is no inert thing.
It is a faith that bears spiritual fruit in growing obedience.
So, again, I’m not preaching antinomianism tonight.
I’m not just just because I’m denying that John is saying that you must keep the
commandments of God according to the law perfectly in order to be assured of your
salvation. That denying that does not make me an antinomian because believing the
gospel, resting in Christ does bear spiritual fruit in the pursuit of holiness
and godliness.
We also learn in this passage that perfectionism and introspective pietism
should be avoided and any kind of false teaching or false teacher or those claiming
special spiritual insight who would tell you that, well, you know, you can’t know
that you have eternal life and you really need to you really need to adopt our way
of thinking if you’re going to gain that assurance and or if they encourage you to
do some navel gazing and always be looking into yourself, always questioning,
do I really know him? Do I really know him?
Now, if you’re living in blatant open sin, if you are if you are proud and arrogant
in your pursuit of sin, then you ought to question whether you know him.
But if you are a struggling believer, a weak believer, one who stumbles and yet you
are repentant, you’re broken, remember God’s word says a broken and a contrite
heart. Oh, God, thou wilt not despise.
God does not despise those who are broken over their sin, those who struggle with
their sin. So you can you can be a believer who’s struggling with your sin and yet
still have full assurance of salvation.
How how can I say that?
Because if you were an unbeliever, you wouldn’t struggle with your sin.
If you were an unbeliever, if you were not born again, you would have no thirst for
righteousness and holiness in your life.
And this leads me to my next point, and that is distinguishing the liar from the
one who keeps his word.
Look at verses four and five as we consider distinguishing the liar from the
one who keeps his word.
In verse four, it says, whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his
commandments.
In other words, does not believe and embrace and seek to live out the
implications of the gospel.
Such a one is a liar and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word in
him, truly the love of God is perfected.
Once again, John appears to be countering the false claims of the heretics.
Here he gives the criteria for how to distinguish the liar.
In other words, the heretic who falsely claims to know God from the genuine
believer who keeps his word.
And again, as I mentioned in the context of this passage, the expression to keep
his word probably has as its primary thought to believe and confess his
gospel in the one who keeps his word.
It says the love of God is perfected.
Now, what’s John talking about?
Is he talking about the love of God in the sense of God’s love for us, or is he
talking about our love for God?
Some would say, well, obviously God’s love is already perfect.
It doesn’t need to be perfected.
So obviously this is talking about our love for God.
However, and you know, scholars differ on how to understand this.
However, the term perfected can mean brought to completion, brought to its
intended goal, and that intended goal is fellowship with God.
And that’s how I think John is using this here.
When he talks about whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is
perfected, that’s God’s love for us.
Again, God’s love for us is already perfect, but it reaches its intended
goal in our fellowship with God and in our full assurance of salvation.
Again, my friends, John here reinforces the truth that true faith in Christ and
the saving knowledge of God have practical implications in our lives.
If we know him, we will believe his gospel, the good news of our salvation
in Christ, and the outflow of that will be a life of fellowship with God and
with his people in the communion of the church.
But finally, John speaks in this passage of abiding in Christ and of what we
could call the Jesus walk.
And this is my final point as we wrap up our time in the word and consider
verse six, as we consider abiding in Christ and the Jesus walk, John writes,
whoever says he abides in him.
And in John’s terminology, to abide in Christ is to trust in Christ, to be
united to Christ by faith.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which Jesus walked.
And what does the Bible mean when it talks about your walk?
Does it talk about, you know, do you amble?
Do you, do you, do you strut or what?
No, it’s talking, the term walk means your life, how you live out your life.
And he is talking here about the Jesus walk.
But again, here is a passage, if, if you read this verse with perfectionistic
lenses, then it’s not going to strengthen your faith, it’s going to strengthen your
doubt about your salvation, because after all, if the criteria for not being a liar,
when we say we abide in him, if the criteria is that we’ve got a walk, that
we’ve got to live life, live like Jesus lived, I mean, that’s kind of a high bar
to meet, right?
That’s a high standard.
How did Jesus live his life?
He lived his life in perfect self-sacrificing love for others.
He loved God perfectly.
He loved his neighbor as himself.
He poured himself out even unto death upon the cross for us and for our salvation.
Is that the criteria for, for knowing that we know him and being truthful when we say
we abide in him again, once again, beloved?
We should not make the mistake of reading this verse in a perfectionistic way, as if
we must live the kind of perfectly obedient and sinless life that Jesus lived, or we
cannot claim to abide in him.
Instead, the point once again is that the outflow and fruit of a living, abiding
trust in Christ is that we will seek to live in a manner that imitates the walk,
the lifestyle of Jesus himself.
We don’t pour ourselves out in love for our neighbor as we ought, but if we are
united to Christ, God will put in our hearts a love for our neighbor, and
especially our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, such that we, that we
desire to serve the Lord by serving and loving our neighbors, especially our
brothers and sisters in the fellowship of the church.
How did Jesus walk?
Again, he lived a life of self-sacrificing love and servanthood in the community of
his disciples and for the life of the world.
Like the rest of this passage, this verse also highlights the inseparable connection
between faith and life, belief and conduct, trust and obedience.
In conclusion, my friends, the Jesus walk is not a life of perfect obedience, which
again would contradict John’s immediate context.
Rather, it is a life focused on loving and worshiping God and serving our
neighbors, especially our neighbors in the fellowship of the church.
And our motivation for doing so will be not to earn our salvation, not to gain
assurance of salvation by our works, but rather it will be gratitude for the
salvation that we have already received in Christ.
In the Jesus walk, we need to understand, remember John is writing to God’s people.
He’s writing to the church corporate.
This is not an individual epistle written to an individual.
This is an epistle that was written as most of them are to churches.
And as, especially as American Christians, we are so individualistic,
we’re hyper individualistic, but the Bible is the church’s book.
It was written to the church and for the church primarily.
It does have personal implications to it, but, but this is for the church.
The Jesus walk is primarily corporate, communal, and covenantal.
You’re not meant to live your Christian life in isolation from your
brothers and sisters in Christ.
You are meant to live your Christian life, the life of discipleship, locking
arms with the family of God, with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
We are to do life together, not just to check off our to-do list.
Oh, I went to church, did my drive through sacraments, you know?
No, we are brothers and sisters united in the body of Christ.
And if any part of your body is cut off, if the hand is cut off from your body,
that hand will not survive because it’s cut off from the source of life.
We are meant to live the Jesus walk together.
And this is a walk that is focused on God and on others.
While Jesus certainly did set aside time in his own life for personal prayer and
devotion, he spent hours in prayerful fellowship with the heavenly father.
Nevertheless, Jesus’s life was lived in redemptive service to others.
And that’s what he calls us to as well.
We can’t die for the sins of others, but we can live our lives for others out of
gratitude for God’s gift of salvation.
As those who are united to him by faith, let us seek to serve him by serving our
brothers and sisters in the fellowship of his church and all of God’s people said.
Amen.
Let’s pray.
Our Lord and Father in heaven, we are thankful, O God, that we may know not just
hope, not just guess, not just wish, but we may know that we know you through
Christ and by faith in him.
We pray, Lord, that as we’ve considered this portion of this precious epistle of
first John, we pray that these words of truth would be powerfully implanted by
your spirit in our souls, that our assurance and knowledge of Christ, our
savior would be deepened and strengthened so that we might be energized, Lord, to
walk after a new obedience, to have a closer walk with you, to serve you in all
things, both in the church and in our daily callings, we pray all of these
things, heavenly father, in Jesus name and all of God’s people said, amen.
We close our time together.
Let’s rise and we’ll sing a wonderful hymn of assurance.
Two seventy five arise.
My soul arise.