1st John Overview: Part 1 – Key Themes and Teachings | Puritan Reformed Church

Good morning. Good Lord's Day.

He's risen. We will be continuing in 1

John today. We'll be singing Psalms 2 and 110.

We will be reading from Exodus, Deacon Rodriguez will be reading

Exodus 3. Great. Alright. And then, so let's begin with the, we have a council meeting today with an examination for Mr.

McNair for coming to the Lord's table and coming to become a community member. And I believe that's everything.

So let's stand for God's word. Call to worship is from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 through 9.

Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the

Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which

I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You may be seated.

Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would bless this time of worship to build us in the knowledge of you.

We ask that you would cause us to see you as glorious. We pray that you would remove the veil from our eyes more and more, that you would cause the hardness of our hearts to be displaced with flesh, with life, that you would cause us to be renewed after the image of Christ.

Father, we pray that you would remove our self -deception, that you would remove the lies that we believe and put truth in its place.

Father, we ask that you would build up your church, that you would add to our numbers and add to our right forms, that you would reform us and help us to continue to reform after your word.

Father, we ask that you would add children to the church, that you would add adults to the church, whole families.

Father, we thank you for the addition of Aveline Esther Schaefer. We ask that you would bless

Arianna and help her to heal and recover from giving birth.

We also pray that you would bless Deacon Schaefer as he cares for his wife and new daughter.

We ask that you would help them to be able to be returned to us swiftly and that you would help us to rejoice in giving the covenant sign to another child.

Father, we pray that you would help us to do your law.

Father, we know we are breakers of your law. We do not do what we ought and we do many things we ought not.

And Father, we ask that you would help us to hate sin and to put it off. We ask that you would help us to love righteousness and to put it on.

We ask that you would more and more cause us to do your law in the earth. Father, we pray that you would help us to desire to obey you and that we would obey promptly and sincerely, that we would view sin as horrendous and wicked and disgusting and awful and as a thing to be thrown away and that you would cause us to see the beauty of holiness and righteousness.

Father, we ask that you would give to us the things that we need to do our duties, that you would provide for us, that you would give us our daily bread.

We ask that you would help us to have the resources we need to do our duties in every sphere.

We pray, Father, that you would forgive us for our failures and for the guilt of Adam and for our unbelief, even from the first moments of our conception forward.

Father, we ask that you would forgive us for all of these things. You would look upon the death of Christ as sufficient to pay this debt, and we ask that you would view us as righteous because he kept the law perfectly.

Father, we ask that you would help us, knowing we have been forgiven much, to love much. Love you, our neighbor, our brother.

Father, we ask that you would help us to be quick to forgive others. Father, we pray that you would help us to remove causes of temptation and stumbling from our midst, that you would help us to avoid going into places of temptation and being causes of temptation.

We ask that you would help us to organize our time, our space, and our relationships in such a way that we're encouraged to righteousness.

And Father, as we have evil desires in the midst of even well -formed places and schedules, that you would help us to put off evil desire, that you would deliver us from the habits and influences and false doctrines and wicked desires of our flesh, the world, and the devil.

We pray these things, knowing that you have the authority and power to give, that you are the

God who will glorify himself. And so we pray this by the mediation of Jesus Christ, and with great expectation that it will be heard, we pray, amen.

Deacon Rodriguez, please come forward. Please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 3.

Please stand for the reading of God's word. Exodus chapter 3.

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father -in -law, the priest of Midian.

And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the

Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.

Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.

So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said,

Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. Then he said, do not draw near this place.

Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover, he said,

I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the

Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the

Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the

Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the

Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

So he said, I will certainly be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

Then Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, the

God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what is his name? What shall

I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you.

Moreover, God said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the

Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, the

Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob appeared to me saying,

I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt. And I have said,

I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the

Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Then they will heed your voice, and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, the king of Egypt, and you shall say to him, the

Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us, and now please let us go three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the

Lord our God. But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand.

So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in its midst, and after that he will let you go.

And I will give you, and I will give these people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall be when you go that you shall not go empty handed, but every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely of her who dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, so you shall plunder the

Egyptians. All right,

Psalm 2. Why do pagan nations rage on, now

Deacon if you could bring back the clip, thank you. Why do pagan nations rage on, and the people plot in vain?

Kings of earth do set themselves up, and the rulers counsel take, thank you.

Against the Lord they plot together, say against the Messiah, let us break their bands asunder, let us cast their cords from us.

He who sits in heaven will laugh, the Lord will view them with scorn.

He will speak to them in wrath, and vex them with his displeasure. Yet have

I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I'll declare the sure decrees of what the

Lord has said to me. You alone are my son, truly this day

I've begotten you. Ask of me for your inheritance, all the nations

I will give. Even to the ends of the earth, all will be your possession.

You will break them as with iron, like a pot dashed to pieces.

Therefore kings, be wise, and judges of the earth, instructed be.

Serve the Lord with holy fear, and so rejoice with great trembling.

Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way.

When his wrath kindles but little, blessed are all who trust in him.

Mm -hm. Why do pagan nations rage on, and the people plot in vain?

Kings of earth do set themselves up, and the rulers counsel take.

Against the Lord, they plot together. Say, against the messiah ends the sunder.

Let us cast the cords from he who sits in heaven.

We will speak, set my sure decrees of what the

Lord has said to me. As with a dash to therefore kings, be wise, and judges of the earth, instructed be.

Serve, so rejoice with great trembling.

Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way.

When his wrath kindles but little, blessed are all who trust in him.

You may be seated. OK, raise your hand if you have the hand up.

Raise your hand, lower your hands. Raise your hand if you don't have the hand up. OK, we need one up here.

Thank you. Another one there. OK, we got two. All right, so we're looking at 1

John. And we have gone through 1 John. What I want to do is give you a sense of the structure of it.

And I want to walk you through and compare the parts. So we'll see how far we get through that.

If I have to, we'll do it in the evening too to wrap it up. But I think I can manage it. We'll see what we can do.

1 John, so you got the hand out. Look at that first page. This is the chiastic structure.

The middle of the book is about judging the confession of another person.

And the way that the handout has it, this is the wording that comes from Pastor Kaiser's outline of the chiasm.

And he cites a number of other people. So I've got the wording there. So I disagree about the precise meaning of the center of the chiasm at H.

But he has the structure. I think the structure is very good. And I think that when you see the comparison parts, we'll see that.

So the headings of the different sections might alter some by how

I'm interpreting some of the verses. But I think that the structure to compare parts does a good job.

So you've got an outline that's meant to make it so it's easy for you to go and see the structure. And I wanted to also, if you look at page 2 of the handout you've got, from that same image, you've got the image there from Pastor Kaiser's summary of John.

He has these big sections that are on the image there. You can see he's got these bracketed sections where he says there's a theme of light.

And then there's the theme of love and sonship. And the themes of witness and assurance. Those are certainly big themes.

But I'm not sure that I would necessarily predominate those sections. Those are important themes.

I would more just say to you they're themes, rather than that they dominate some of those sections. The other thing is the structure of the book is an interesting sort of way it starts.

When you think about the chiasm, the idea, remember just a reminder, a chiasm is a structure that is sort of a

V shape on the outline. It's called a chiasm because a chi is a letter in Greek that forms an

X. It looks like an X. And so if you imagine a chi, if you were to take an

X and you were to cut it down the middle, if you cut it down the middle from top to bottom, that leaves you with sort of a sideways

V. So a chiasm is a structure that gives you that sideways

V. Now, I want to suggest to you that there's a neat thing where the book starts out with basically the idea of God's revelation in the apostolic deposit.

There's a bunch of heresies and false doctrines that get refuted. And then it concludes with we have knowledge of stuff because it's been revealed to us.

So there's sort of this, that's the really zoomed out structure.

Go to page three of the handout. I'm going to start going through the text with you and giving you some of the big things again.

OK, so we've got, I've laid side by side the comparative parts. So you've got A and A prime.

A prime is an easier way of saying A followed by apostrophe. So here we are. We have

A and A prime. So these sections are the parts that match up. So verses 1 to 4 of chapter 1 read as follows.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, namely the word of life.

The life was manifested. And we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the

Father and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us.

And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that our joy may be full.

OK, now, well, we're going to see in the later letters of John, one of the things he says is that there is no greater joy than to see your children walk in the truth.

This is super selfish, right? He's just like, I'm all about me. That's what John's saying here.

He's going, I really just want you guys to walk in the truth so that I can be happy. You go, I mean, caring about you walking in the truth seems to be kind of selfless.

I mean, it seems like he's concerned about you, right? OK, yes. Christian law, the law of God, tells you to seek the interest of other people.

And that's how you seek your own interest. The good life is the life of applying the law of God not only to yourself, but also to others, just seeking their good.

So his desire is to see the church walk in the truth.

And the result would be that those whom he teaches, if he sees them walk in the truth, he will have joy seeing those whom he has taught walk in the truth.

Now, take note of that for a second. If you want to be joyful, you need to get the knowledge of God.

You want to do what God commands. And you also want to see others, especially those who are under your authority, walking in the truth.

These are the things to pursue. And our vows as a church are organized around that in terms of the duties we commit to, where we say we commit to knowing

God, knowing the truth. We commit to acting according to the knowledge of the truth, the knowledge of God. And we commit to spreading the knowledge of the truth, the knowledge of God.

That's the good life. That's the life that increases your possession of God. And it's the life that also brings joy.

Now, the word of life is the thing that gets central attention here.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, namely the word of life.

The word of life is this eternal thing. And this relates back to John.

In the beginning was the word. The life was manifested. This is the idea that there's an incarnation, but also the giving of prophecy.

And we have seen, and bear witness, and declared to you that eternal life. Notice that. There's this eternal life that is the logos, the word.

This word was manifested. They saw it. They bore witness to it.

They declared it. One thing that liberals want to do is to make it so you don't trust the

Bible. There's lots of ways to do that. There's the places where there are not contradictions, but where they try to make it look like a contradiction.

There are questions about the text itself. Well, which text is really the true one?

Or is your translation reliable? These are all things that can be dealt with in study. But one of the things that gets done that attacks at a really basic level is the idea that there's some sort of gap, a distance between the word that's revealed to us and the eternal word.

And there's no gap there for the Apostle John. When you get the word written out by the

Apostle John, there's no distance or gap between that and the eternal word.

These words, as we understand them and believe them, these words, it's the word.

It's the eternal word. It's the logos. It's the mind of Christ.

And we get it. It's given to us. It was declared. And it's heard.

And it can be understood. And it can be believed. When you believe the word, you're believing

Jesus. You're believing the logos. You're believing the eternal word.

And when we possess that word, we have a koinonia.

We have a fellowship, a communion with the Father and with the

Son and with the Holy Spirit. We share in the possession of that word.

And we share it with each other. One of the things that's happened in the 20th and 21st centuries is a domination in some places of this philosophy called existentialism.

It says that, really, your choices are what make reality. And your choices are the things that define who you are.

And this comes from this thought that the truth comes after matter, that thoughts are a product of the fizzing of brain chemicals or the sending of electrical signals between neurons.

And so as a result, there's sort of this material reality. And then there's sort of thought comes out of that material reality.

This is a response to a naturalistic materialism, an atheistic, secular worldview.

And this idea that you can sort of define the reality and make it so that you just an evolved thing from animal grunts and squeals.

So language doesn't really carry thoughts. They're just kind of signals relating to experiences.

But there's no carrying of thoughts. Do you see the desperate loneliness with a common goal?

We are not alone. We are not alone in a crowd. We have a crowd of those who share a common faith, that share truths, that share a purpose, that have gifts to serve each other, that share a

God who rules. This is the fellowship that we have.

We are not alone. And this word is not just marks on a page.

It's an eternal mind. And you remember in John chapter 1, it says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was

God, and the word was with God. So you go, oh, he's God, and he's also with God. So there's more than one person who's God.

Like it's repeated here. That which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

He was with the Father. There's a Father and the Son. They're distinct persons. So this right here, this is super important four verses.

It's amazing. And it's about how we have words from God. This is a Sola Scriptura text.

This is a text about we have the eternal word. We have the eternal life. We have that which was declared.

This is the apostolic deposit. So the conclusion of the book, chapter five, verses 13 to 21,

A prime. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the

Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. So he is writing because he wants to give an epistemological support.

He wants to make it so that you can have knowledge. He wants to make it so that you can prove from the word, which is the authority.

I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

And so there's this ability to have assurance and that you may continue to believe in the name of the

Son of God. Now, this is the confidence that we have in Him that if we ask anything according to His will,

He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

Not only do we have a fellowship with each other and with God, but we also have a fellowship in the inheritance, a koinonia, a communion in, the inheritance, so that when we ask for it, we are given blessings out of that inheritance.

We ask the Father, and by the mediation of the Son, we receive that inheritance.

If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin, which does not lead to death, he will ask and he will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death.

So we're to pray for each other when we see each other in sin and ask for God to give repentance. This idea that when we see a brother sinning and we might lose a brother in fellowship, it's a great loss, a part of the body being hacked off or plucked out.

And so we pray that God would bring repentance. We have expectation that God will do it.

There is sin leading to death. And then we're told about this subcategory. I do not say that he should pray about that.

All unrighteousness is sin and there is sin not leading to death. Okay, so there's all unrighteousness is sin.

Anytime you're sinning, you're committing unrighteousness. Righteousness is defined by the law of God. Righteousness is justice.

Unrighteousness is injustice. Justice is defined by the law of God. The law of God defines sin.

By the law of God is the knowledge of sin, we're told in Romans. All sin is unrighteousness.

And all unrighteousness is sin. Now there's a subcategory of sin that does not lead to death.

And there's a subcategory of sin that does lead to death. There's sin leading to death.

I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin. And there is sin not leading to death.

So what is the sin leading to death? I told you this before, but it's key. And hopefully it makes it more clear when you put it side by side with this idea of the earlier piece of the chiasm.

And you say, we have the word of God. We have the word of truth. The sin leading to death is false prophecy.

It's pretending to have a word. It's the presumptuous putting forward of thus saith the

Lord. I do not say that he should pray about that.

You pray against that. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin.

That doesn't continue in sin. And this is about how you judge other people. And so we have this idea of judging the word that's brought and judging the confession of another.

And that's the central point of this book. The book is about judging a profession of faith, judging teaching, and judging teachers.

Profession, teaching, teachers. That's what this is about, judging.

We know that whoever is born of God does not sin. But he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.

In other words, God preserves them. God causes them to repent. God causes them to stay in the word and to retain a confession.

God causes them to resist stumbling and to overcome. Because He gives them faith and He causes their faith to overcome.

So you look, you can't read their mind, you look at those things. Verse 19, we know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

The church is of God. The apostles are of God. The idea that there are those who confess the truth.

It's a distinct body. The church is distinct from the world. Notice the world being used here as a separate part.

This is uncontroversial. It's only when we get to places where it says things like, you know, he's the propitiation for the whole world, that people all of a sudden want to reject all the nuance of the word ever being used to mean anything other than every single individual.

Okay, look right here. We got world being used to refer to a subset of the human race that is exclusive of the church.

We know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. Two distinct societies, the antithesis.

City of man, city of God. Verse 20, and we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know

Him who is true, right? He came, He was incarnate, and He gave to us

His word, and He causes us to understand that we know because of the revelation that we may know

Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ.

This is the true God and eternal life, right? Christ is the life. Christ is the truth.

As you know the truth, you are knowing Christ. And what's this designed to do?

Little children, those who believe, I've written to you because you believe. That's what he says up in verse 13.

Little children, keep yourselves from lies. Keep yourselves from false gods.

Keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Now, that's the outside of the sandwich, right?

If this were an In -N -Out burger, this would be like, I don't know, what do we have? H in the middle? So I mean, got like an extra piece of cheese or meat here.

So we've got, we've got, I don't even know. I can't count that fast. So we've got a lot. It's like a six by six or something like that.

We've got here a lot of layers. So B and B prime, let's go to page four.

Verse five, this is the message which we have heard from Him and declared to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

He is, in other words, He's truth, and there's no falsehood in Him. He also doesn't change, right?

Elsewhere we have like, there is no shadow of turning in Him. He doesn't, there's no period of transition where what was true becomes false or anything like that.

There's no change in God's mind. This is the message which we have heard from Him and declared to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

In other words, you must believe the Word of God. You must believe the

Word of God. It is truth. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Okay, so now, if we say, that's a confession, right? That's somebody says we have fellowship with Him, and then they give a second testimony called their works, and their works are sin and they won't repent.

You believe that second testimony, which contradicts the first, and you know they're liars.

They're lying, and they're not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light, now that's a second testimony, right?

There's what we say and how we walk. If we walk in the light, as He's in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. So this cleansing, we have the forgiveness that comes from the removal of guilt, but there's also this idea of sanctification, this ongoing growth.

So we have fellowship with each other if we share the true faith, but we also get to share in the work together, and we get to share in the blessings of that work together if we're applying the law of God.

If we all just are a law to ourselves, and we do not care what God commands, and we do not care about the work

He gives us to do, then guess what? We're not going to advance in the same direction. We're not going to be unified.

We're not going to accomplish anything. Everyone will do what is right in their own eyes, and they will have no king.

We have King Jesus as head of the church, and we are to obey Him, and to advance in the same direction at the same time.

You judge the profession by the walk. If there's unrepentant sin, the profession is to be viewed as false.

Verse eight, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, right?

So a person who says, I don't sin, my behavior is the standard of behavior. Well, if I do it, it's good.

Right, that right there shows that they have deceived themselves, and the truth is not in them.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So now, there's this idea of ongoing sanctification. When you repent of sin, it helps you to grow in sanctification, in holiness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make

Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. Right, so those are two distinct sayings, verse eight and verse 10, okay?

So notice this. Here are three false claims that we've been shown how to refute.

John is holding our hands through very practical apologetics.

This is ecclesiology apologetics. Both of those words will get you nowhere with most people, because they'll go, what are you talking about?

Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church, and apologetics is how you defend. How you defend

Christianity. So this is about how you defend your doctrine of the church. If we say that we have fellowship with Christ, and we walk in darkness, we have a false confession.

John's giving to us a useful way to argue against these people, against an uncredible profession of faith.

Then, another thing that's a marker of a not credible confession of faith is to say, I have no sin now.

I used to sin, but not anymore. I'm doing very well. Now, that claim, he says, is a lie.

We need to confess our sins. You're gonna keep sinning. You need to confess sin.

If you say I have no sin, you're a liar. You've deceived yourself. And then verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, past tense, so ever.

I was righteous at my conception. I was righteous as a toddler, and I'm righteous today.

I have no need of forgiveness. It's good for you that Jesus died for sins, because you are the worst.

But for me, doing very well. That one, that right there, liar.

These are three things that help you to say, liar. B prime.

This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not only by water, but by water and blood.

And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth, for there are three that bear witness.

The Spirit, the water, and the blood. And these three agree as one. The other one's about how to discredit witnesses.

This is about witnesses that help us to establish a claim. The Holy Spirit is an infallible witness.

We have the witness of baptism. And we have the witness of the

Lord's table. These three witnesses, the words of the Holy Spirit, and the sacraments instituted by the

Lord Jesus Christ, and infallibly witnessed to us in the scriptures by the Holy Spirit, these are three witnesses.

And it's not just two witnesses, which is the minimum sufficiency for establishing a legal claim, it's three.

By the mouth of two or three witnesses, let things be established. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.

For this is the witness of God, which he has testified of his Son. And then, basically

I just bolded the rest of the text, because this is what's being witnessed to.

Think about this, think of the emphasis. The Holy Spirit witnesses to it, the water of baptism witnesses to it, the

Lord's Supper witnesses to it. This seems to be important. So, what is the thing that was witnessed to?

He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself.

In other words, the Holy Spirit's in you. If you believe in the Son of God, you have the

Holy Spirit in you as a witness. You will have assurance of salvation based upon that testimony of that witness.

He who does not believe God has made God a liar.

Bad move, mistake, undo, control

Z, check yourself before you wreck yourself. This is a terrible decision. Do not make

God a liar. He who does not believe God has made him a liar. If the word of God says a thing and you do not believe it, red alert, err, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his

Son. And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his

Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Okay, so the level of like asterisks, like highlighting, the level of emphasis on this is super high.

He gives us the testimony in two different wordings, as well as having emphasized it by, hey, this is the witness of the

Holy Spirit, witness of baptism, witness of the Lord's Supper. Hey, three witnesses, and also, if you ever believe men about anything, you should totally believe

God about the things he says. Okay, this is maximal emphasis. He who believes in the

Son of God has the witness in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his

Son. And the other one, God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his

Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

If you believe the gospel, you have life. If you believe the gospel, the witness of the

Holy Spirit's in you. If you believe the gospel, you're saved, and you cannot lose it.

This is meant to be a strong statement about how you can have assurance. Is the gospel you believe the gospel that was testified to in the scriptures?

If you're not sure, go read the scriptures. Page five, we have

C, and on page six, you got C prime. This one is a remarkable one, because it has so much overlap linguistically.

They both say, by this we know that, two times. They both say, no, five times. They talk about abiding four times, and one of them talks about abiding five times.

Then there's love, and then there's calling people liars, and there's talking about propitiation. The linguistic bridges between these sections are just overwhelming.

If it were a network chart, you'd see lines everywhere. There's just a lot of connections between these.

So chapter two, verse one. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin.

Assurance of salvation is very important for you to not sin. Assurance of salvation helps you to avoid despair, and therefore encourages you to act in hope.

My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the

Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.

So we have this idea that the profession of faith is very important, and also the gospel is important to establish assurance.

And here we have this idea that not sinning comes from this recognition of the forgiveness.

If anyone sins, we have an advocate. This is a, I want you to not sin, and if you sin, I want you to remember you have the advocate.

Jesus Christ is gonna be a lawyer for you, and he's going to argue for you that you are not guilty.

On what grounds? On the grounds of his blood. He's gonna appeal to the propitiation he brought.

Remember propitiation? What's this one mean? The propitiation is the turning away of wrath and the turning toward a favor.

How is this accomplished? How is the wrath of God turned away? And how is his favor turned toward us?

The wrath is turned away because the blood of Christ pays for all our debts, so there's no grounds for wrath.

How is the favor turned toward us? All of his good works are imputed to us so that we're counted as righteous, so that we are recipients of favor.

The propitiation, and it was the propitiation not only for some of these

Christians, these Christians that John was writing to, but for Christians throughout the world, not just Jewish Christians, but the

Gentiles as well, Christians throughout the world. Verse three, now by this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

This is about judging the profession of others. He just talked about how when you sin, you need to remember that you have an advocate with the

Father and that you have forgiveness in his blood. By this we know that we know him if we keep his commandments.

He who says, now notice this, this is about a confession, this is about something somebody says, this is the external of somebody else.

He who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar. John seems very concerned with being able to call people liars.

He really wants to maximize, he's accusation maxing for you, he's really helping you to be able to call people out as liars.

He's really helping you identify that. He who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.

You shouldn't believe his confession of faith. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

Notice that the idea that keeping the word of God, in other words obeying his commandments and confessing the truths that are revealed is how you show a mature love of God.

That's how you show a perfected or matured love of God. Now that idea that it's the love of God, it's love from God and he's maturing you is what's there.

By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked.

So again, this is about judging a confession. He who says, verse seven, brethren, I write no new commandment to you but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment

I write to you. Wait, which is it? I write no new commandment or I write a new commandment? Remember, this is the old commandment, love your neighbor and love

God. And he's saying here that these commandments are made new in Christ. Why?

Because we're in the period where darkness is passing away. We're in the gospel era. We're in the era of the new covenant where the light is advancing to fill the earth that the knowledge of God will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.

The light is displacing the darkness. This is how the commandment's made new because we're in an era of newness.

We're in the new covenant. It's the same commandment made new.

So verse eight, again, a new commandment I write to you which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

He who says he's in the light and hates his brother. So notice, being in the light is equated with love.

Being in the light is equated with law keeping or righteousness, okay? Light, love, law keeping, righteousness.

These things fit together. These are analogies. These are things that are meant to connect to each other.

On the other side, we have darkness. We have hatred. We have unrighteousness. We have sin.

We have law breaking. The commandments of God show us how to love. You are gonna run into this a lot where people say the law of God is something we're free of.

The commandments of God is something we're free of. We are in the New Testament. We don't have to obey the commandments of God.

Right, this is everywhere. Why does nobody believe in the

Sabbath? This right here, right?

Very specifically, the idea that you don't need to worry about the law in the

New Testament. That is not what the Apostle Paul or the

Apostle John or the Lord Jesus Christ or anybody who wrote any scripture at any time teaches.

Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in him and in you because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now, right?

He says he's in the light, but his hate of the brother shows that he's in darkness. He who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

The idea of saying one thing and giving a cause for stumbling, causes for stumbling are when you sin and cause others to be tempted, or when you do something that looks like sin and cause others to be tempted to sin or to unbelief.

External actions are causes of stumbling. He who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he's going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

We don't have a shared goal. We don't know where we're going. Two can't walk together unless they're agreed is what

Proverbs says. Two can't walk together unless they're agreed. You have to know where you're going. If we say, hey, we should travel together, and I go, that sounds fantastic, that sounds amazing, and you go,

I'm going to Mexico City, and I say, oh, I'm going to Seattle. How far are we gonna get to travel together? Maybe to the airport, right?

That's about as far as we could travel together maybe. Depends, am I driving, are you flying? Like, what are we doing?

So this idea, two can't walk together unless they're agreed. If you hate your brother, you're in darkness and walk in darkness, and you don't know where you're going because the darkness has blinded your eyes.

Now, this is how you judge the confession of another. Our own sins should drive us back to the gospel.

And when we are dealing with other people and we see their sins, we need to call them to repentance. So C -prime, which links up here, verse seven, go to page six, look at verse seven.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. So notice one side focused on the hate at the end here, and the other one's about the love, and so the loving of each other as a law -keeping.

How do you love your neighbor? By keeping the law of God toward your neighbor. That's what Romans 13 says. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows

God. You can't love your neighbor unless you're born of God. If you think you have friends who are not

Christian, they're not really friends, you might love them, that's good, love your enemies, and love your neighbor. But if they're not

Christian, they don't love you. They don't know what your good is, they're not seeking your good. Hey, you should love them, but they don't love you.

Your goal is to seek their good and to share with them the gospel. Once they believe the gospel, they can love you.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know

God. So, it's a necessary fruit. If you know God, it's going to result in love.

Unavoidable. For God is love. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent

His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Verse 10, that God's love toward us was manifested in that He sent

His Son to pay for our sins and to give us life, to not just leave us in deadness, but to give us life, and that life involves the bearing of fruit and it involves love.

Now, the life itself is faith, and it bears the fruit of good works and of love.

Verse 10, in this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent

His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Hey, don't get confused. Your love didn't make it so you're saved.

Your love is not the basis of your salvation. Don't be assured of your salvation by your love. No, you should be assured of your salvation because of the love of God.

You should look to the propitiation as a basis to have certainty of your salvation. He loved you first, and that makes it so you're able to love.

You would be in darkness if He did not save you, if He did not give you light.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. I said the love of God, we're supposed to love coming from God causes us to love

God and to love our neighbor. Verse 12, no one has seen

God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love has been perfected in us.

Right, so okay, you think you love God, great. You know, you love

Christ by loving His body, the church. And that would give evidence that God abides in you.

And that love of God toward us is matured in us to us loving

God and loving neighbor. Verse 13, by this we know that we abide in Him.

This is how we can judge this. And He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit, and we have seen and testified that the

Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Okay, so this, if this is a corporate testimony, this would be the idea of the church seeing the

Word of God being testified to and giving His Spirit by giving the

Word. We test the spirits by testing the Word. And we have seen and testified that the

Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the

Son of God, God abides in Him and He in God. This is a confession. You're judging an external confession from somebody else.

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love and He who abides in love abides in God and God in Him.

These are tests to evaluate the profession of another. This is emphasized a lot in this book because it's very important.

I told you this last time and I'm gonna emphasize it because it's important. If you don't have unity, you can't work together.

And if you don't care about working together, it's because you don't care about the glory of God. If you want to glorify

God, if you want to fill the earth with the knowledge of God, you're going to care about working with other believers in order to see the earth filled with His knowledge.

We are as Americans inclined towards individualism where we care about ourselves and we do not care about organized religion.

If you want to say something that will cause people to grimace without any context, walk out on the street amongst the crowd and just start saying, organized religion.

You will not get positive responses. It is super cool to say, I don't believe in organized religion.

I don't trust in organized religion. Good for you, you're thinking for yourself so well. You totally didn't get that from the culture all around you.

What does that even mean? People have no idea what religion even is. Define religion for yourself.

What is religion? Religion is a religio. What's a religio? A religio is a rule.

A rule of what? A rule of doctrine and a rule of practice. A religion is a rule of doctrine and a rule of practice.

What do you believe and what do you do? What do you say and what are the actions? The religion that a person has is the shared confession of truths and the shared standard of action.

If you don't believe in organized religion, you don't believe in organizing people around truth or around right and wrong.

Do you see the absurdity of this? But this is the spirit of the age. Test the spirits, beloved.

And so this rejection of organized religion is an attack on the church of the

Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the king of the church and he has made an organization.

His intention is to have officers and laws that are used to govern an organization.

You will love the church. You will love your brothers if you love the

Lord. A confession of faith matters.

A corporate confession of faith matters. Working together matters. The world is full of all sorts of evil and all sorts of problems that need to be overcome.

There is too much work to be done that for you could do it on your own. Individualism insofar as individuals are judged by God, you can't be saved by somebody else's faith.

You need to believe for yourself and you have rights. That's proper individualism. But to reject family, church, and state and to be anarchistic in all of those is not appropriate.

It is wicked. We must care about the household, the church, and the state because they are institutions that God has made.

So we must care about more than just ourselves. We must care about the confession of other people and be concerned to see the holiness of the church maintained.

Verse 15, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God, and we have known and believed the love that God has for us.

God is love and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.

Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.

One of the ways that God's love toward us matures in us and that we are matured is our assurance of salvation.

There's the maturing us to the point of having assurance and then there's the maturing of us as to having good fruit consistently.

Being blameless. Not being a cause of stumbling. That's not sinlessness. It's not sinless perfection.

It's about making it so that your consistent external behavior is an honor to the

Lord. Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment.

God's love is perfect. God casts out our fear when we understand his love toward us properly.

We see his mercy, his propitiation, that he's worked and our fear is cast out.

We have assurance. We have a strong assurance that we are saved, that Christ has paid for us.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. So as you understand the love of God, the love of God toward you, it caused your fear of torment to be removed because fear involves torment.

But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us.

Beloved, you do good works and you love God because he first loved you.

That's true metaphysically, like he causes your love, but it's also true as a motive. It's true psychologically.

Your recognition of the love of God makes it so that you love him.

If someone says I love God and hates his brother by doing an external visible sin that we can all see and then doesn't repent, he is a liar.

Man, this John guy just making us call each other liars. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love

God whom he has not seen? In this commandment we have from him that he who loves

God must love his brother also. The two great commandments, love God, love neighbor.

That's a summary of the law. Whoever believes that Jesus is the

Christ is born of God and everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who is begotten of him.

That first part, the first clause, whoever believes that Jesus is the

Christ is born of God. You can have certainty that you have been born of God if you believe that Jesus is the

Christ. And everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who is begotten of him.

That's something that you judge the externals of. So one's about assurance and the other one's about credibility of profession.

By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments.

This is about judging others. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love

God and keep his commandments. The statements and the actions are how we can look at the external.

For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. Notice that. That right there, 1

John 5 3. 1

John 5 3. Memorize that verse. This is a heresy of our age.

Antinomianism runs wild in the streets and you must be ready to fight it.

1 John 5 3 is a proof text against antinomianism, the rejection of the law.

For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. How do you love

God? By keeping his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

That's both objectively true about the law itself. His commandments aren't burdensome. If you find them burdensome, that's because you're a lousy individual.

We all have that problem. But also, as your love for him increases, it makes the law not burdensome.

It makes it a joy. Verse four. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.

And this is the victory that has overcome the world, your faith. The faith is the thing that yields overcoming the world.

It yields conquering the world through the actions of love. Law keeping teaches us how to overcome the world.

Faith yields love, which yields these good works externally and that's how we overcome the world.

Who is he who overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. So if you believe that Jesus is the son of God, you're going to overcome the world.

You're going to bear good fruit. You're going to love. You're going to keep the commandments of God increasingly by degrees.

Now, we are all exasperated with the world. We look around and we're like, what is the deal?

We all complain to each other about it. You might read the news so you can get mad or you might choose to avoid reading the news.

And if you have children, you worry about the world that they will have to deal with when you are dead and gone.

Faith gives you power to subdue the world and to make it so that the world you pass on to them is better.

Obeying the law of God is the stuff you do to make the world better for your children.

It's how you hand on a better place to them. You overcome it, you conquer it, you subdue it by obeying the law.

And it transforms the world. Who is he who overcomes the world?

But he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. We'll pick up this evening on D.

C, just like I said, got through it all. Let's pray.

Father, we ask that you would bless us with the knowledge of you more and more, that you would cause our love for you to increase and love for our brothers and for our neighbors to increase.

We ask that you'd help us to love our enemies and to share the gospel with them, that you would cause them to no longer be our enemies but to be our brothers.

Father, we pray that you would help us to know your law and to obey it. When we break your law, we ask that you would help us to repent and help us to confess our sins.

Father, we ask that you would help us to overcome the world. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Comments, questions, objections from the voting members and those with speaking privileges. Okay, let's sing

Psalm 110. Let's do some overcoming singing.

Please stand. Psalm 110, a Psalm of David.

The Lord said to my Lord, sit here at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

The Lord will send your rod of strength out of Zion and you will surely rule them all among your enemies.

Your people freely come in the day of your power. From morning's dawn in holy robes, your youth are like the dew.

Oh, the Lord has now sworn and will not change his mind. From Melchizedek's order, you are forever a priest.

The Lord at your right hand will strike through kings in wrath. He will judge among the nations and fill them with their dead.

He will surely wound the heads of many lands and he'll drink from the wayside brook and therefore lift his head.

The Lord said to my Lord, sit here at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

The Lord will send your rod of strength out of Zion and you will surely rule them all among your enemies.

Your people freely come in the day of your power.

From morning's dawn in holy robes, oh, the

Lord has now sworn and will not change his mind.

From Melchizedek's order, you are forever a priest.

The Lord at your right hand will strike through kings in wrath.

He will judge among the nations and fill them with their dead.

He will surely wound the heads of many lands and he'll drink from the wayside brook and therefore lift his head.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.