1 John 2:12-17 Aim a Little Higher

Welcome to Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where we are growing in faith, community, and service. This is a message from the series called In the Light, out of the book of 1 John by Pastor Don Filsek.

If you'd like more information about our church, please visit us on the web at www .recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Aim a Little Higher: The Bullseye of the Christian Life

We're going to jump into the introduction to the sermon this morning, and I've entitled my sermon, Aim a Little Higher. There's a metaphor for shooting that's used quite often, and has been used down through the centuries.

Now, if you think about it, there was a time in history when the next meal was pretty dependent upon the accuracy of the hunter. The quality of the meal, whether it was going to be vegetable stew or not, was kind of the question of how accurate the hunter was.

This is actually funny. This is a picture from the retreat that was just taken yesterday. There's some women that are up. My wife, one of them, up at Camp Barakel. This is a very recent picture, just from yesterday.

One of our ladies taking some shots there. You can advance the slide to the next one. Title of the sermon was what? Aim a Little Higher. Do you think there's some advice for whoever was shooting those arrows?

Well, they got the 15.

Do you get 15 points for hitting the 15 in the upper right corner? I don't know. Aim a Little Higher, there's a lot more at stake with the message that I'm going to share this morning than just merely the quality of the stew.

There's something that's a little bit more at stake. The word that is used in our text here, and it's used often in the Greek language for sin in the New Testament, is borrowed from the shooting range.

We're going to find that word. It really only occurs once, and it's not going to be a major part of the message. Verse 12 says, I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven. The word sins there is a Greek word, hamartia, which is more than you needed to know this morning how to say that word.

It means to fall short. It's one of the most common words for sin in the New Testament. It's a word picture for sin, and it's the notion that we are taking aim and shooting like an arrow, and our arrows keep falling short of the target.

It's like we're not even hitting the target. How many of you are thinking, if my life is a picture of shooting, I'd like to know what the bullseye is. Does that make sense? If your life, if the actions and the behaviors and the things that you're doing are a picture of that, then what's the target?

There's all different kinds of targets we could borrow from the world around us. To be honest, we do this quite frequently. Some of the times, we're thinking primarily in terms of other people. We make other people the target, and boy, I want to be like him, I want to be like her, or more often than not, I don't want to be like that, I don't want to be like them.

I want to be better than them, and so we make that the bullseye. You understand what I'm talking about? I think we've all experienced that to some degree, even to the effect of saying, I'm doing okay because I'm not missing as bad as they are.

They're falling super short, I'm only falling five feet short, and so I'm doing okay. But what is the bullseye in the Christian life? It is the holiness of God, it is Christ-likeness. In that sense, is there a sense in which all of a sudden that snaps into focus, like how we fall short on a regular basis?

We pull back the arrow with the behaviors, the actions of our lives, pull it back, and we fall short, and that's the picture of sin. If you're observing me shoot, you're watching me, I'm sighting in my bow.

How many of you are hunters in the room, or have a hunter in your family? Some of you are sighting in your bows. I think, isn't there a doe season right now? It's already on, and probably there's some people that are missing this morning because doe season is on, and you can hunt with a bow right now.

People have recently been sighting in, and so you're out there, you're sighting in, I'm sighting in, and I am consistently falling short of the target, but I'm just kinda like okay with that. I'm like, yeah, well, that's the way I roll, just a little short every time I pull back.

The arrow.

Now, wouldn't the loving, kind thing to do if you were there, say, training your son or with a friend, and they keep shooting shy, that you might say something like, aim a little higher? Wouldn't that be kind of the kind thing to do when you see someone consistently shooting.

Short?

John is gonna do just that for us this morning. He's gonna encourage us and challenge us to aim a little higher towards the will of God. He's gonna set before us that which is true of all believers. He's going to seek to encourage us.

Wherever we're at with our walk with God, he's gonna talk to those who are more mature. He's gonna talk to those who are newer in the faith and haven't grown much yet. And then he's gonna issue a challenge for us to avoid settling for short-sighted living.

That is, short-sighted living in a world that is fading away, making that our target instead of the will of God. John calls us all this morning, in essence, to aim a little higher. So I want you to open in 1 John, chapter 2, verses 12 through 17, and you'll find that on page 877 in the Bible in the seat back in front of you.

So if you open to 877, and then it's gonna bleed over just a little bit into 878 there, just a few words over there.

But follow along.

And if you don't own a Bible, I would encourage you to just take that one with you. We do desire for everybody to have a copy of the word of God as we seek to figure out what John is telling us to do here in aiming a little higher.

So follow along as I read 12 through 17 of 1 John, chapter 2. I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning.

I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions is not from the Father, but is from the world.

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God.

Abides forever.

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, I rejoice in this call to us. There's some depth of encouragement in this passage, some things that are being stated to be true, that we have come to know you, Father, that our sins are forgiven, some really super awesome things that are giving us a foundation and a springboard in which to base our lives and ultimately to aim higher.

And Father, I pray that as we have an opportunity to worship you, that we would lift our eyes up from the muck and the mire and the things that have gone on this week that would seek to push us away from you, Father, from the world's system of desire of the flesh and desire of the eyes and pride of life, Father, those things that would seek to undo us and shake us free from you, but Father, I pray that you would help us to hold fast and to raise our eyes up from the things around us that would so easily entangle us and raise our eyes up to see the cross, the beautiful, amazing salvation that we have in you.

And Father, that we would worship you this morning in spirit and in truth with these songs that have been selected, Father, that they would be more, again, an exercise of our hearts in worship and not just merely an exercise of our vocal cords and trying to sing beautifully, but singing with hearts, totally recognizing who you are and rejoicing in you.

I ask this in Jesus' name. Thanks a lot to the band for leading us this morning, just that reminder that we stand forgiven at the cross. That's worth the price of admission right there. So that was a joke.

You didn't really pay. There wasn't really an admission price, I just said that. But make sure you have your Bibles open. I recognize it kind of filled in since I last stood up here. So some of you maybe didn't hear the passage or the text, but we're in 1 John 2, 12 -17, and the title of the message is Aim a Little Higher.

So have your Bibles open in front of you is beneficial. That's page 877 in that seat back Bible if you need help getting there. Let me start off by setting the logical flow of the letter of 1 John. I recognize that not all of you have been here so far during this, so just to kind of catch you up on John's discussion so far with his church.

Now many believe that he was probably writing this to the church in Ephesus. It's a real church that he has in mind. We're unsure of what that church was, but historians and church tradition leads us to believe that it was Ephesus that he had visited, he had spent some time there, and now he's departed and he's hearing some news of what's going on there and he's writing back to them.

And so there's some real world application to the things that he's saying here. But he started off by telling us that Jesus is awesome, right? Jesus is awesome, and he is the message from God that we should be proclaiming.

He said, I was an eyewitness to the word of life coming in flesh, the one, the messenger, the one who has made manifest and shows us who the father is. And I saw him, and it is him that we proclaim. He is the message that we proclaim.

Then he went on to explain that the message that he heard from Jesus, so he had heard from him, he had seen him, he had touched him, he had spent time with him and observed his life, and he says that the message that he had heard was that God is light and sinful people, and as sinful people we should come into the light by confessing our sins and receive cleansing and forgiveness.

And then last week he explained that Jesus is our advocate and our propitiation, a big word that just means the turning away of the wrath of God from us. And so the wrath of God was just and reasonable and right, that God would be upset and angry with human rebellion, and that was Jesus took that wrath for us on the cross.

And those who are truly with Jesus, then we found out last week, are going to be growing in obedience and love for others, they are going to love fellow Christians, they are going to be walking as Christ walked, they are going to be keeping his commands, keeping his word.

So the last couple weeks have been a little bit heavy, would you guys agree with me? It's felt heavy to me, has it felt heavy to you or is that, sometimes I don't know how it strikes you or how it hits you, but it's been a little bit heavy.

I think it ought to be a little bit heavy because John has been addressing sin to us as followers of Christ and that ought to, in some sense, I don't think that's something we should take lightly, we shouldn't be able to sit around and talk about sin and be like, oh yeah, well that's just sin, it is what it is.

I believe it is a little bit heavy. But I believe that John knows that in the context of 1 John and in his writing, he's ready to give us a little bit of a break, he's ready to give us a little bit of encouragement.

So verses 12 through 14 break into a section of explaining to us what is true of believers in the church, what is true of us. It's as if, certainly he's writing to a specific church in mind and yet, as it's the Holy Spirit revealing this to him, this applies to us.

I mean, it's as if the Holy Spirit is writing this to Recash Church in a sense, I mean, that it is available to us, that it is there for our encouragement and for our edification and for building us up and so we need to take it that way.

And John is going to encourage them and us by two statements about three categories of people and you can go ahead and put that slide up. First he addresses to us little children, then he's going to address fathers and then he's going to address young men.

Now we already know that in the book of 1 John, already he's addressed his entire church and what term has he used of these three, do you recognize any of those? He's called his entire church little children already and he's going to a couple more times in the book of 1 John.

So he uses this term for the entire church. Now I had mentioned last week that if I were to stand up and go, oh my little children, oh you precious, it would come across in our culture as fairly condescending, right?

It would just be like, who does he think he is? Well this title that he's giving to his church was one of, it was an endearing term, it was like, I care for you, I love you, I want what's best for you and I'm trying to look out for you and I'm trying to help you grow.

So it's that kind of term, but it also indicates that he took some level of responsibility for his congregation. He was taking a level of responsibility in that he saw it as his responsibility and duty to help raise them up into Christ.

And that's one of the responsibilities of elders and pastors, that's one of the things that the leadership of the church takes seriously, is this calling to lead and direct and it's one of the things that's constantly in my mind, is that responsibility.

But I don't think this is a term of condescension, it does indicate the responsibility that John felt to those he is writing to. So what he says to the little children is meant for the entire church. He's not, it's not as though he's writing this and saying, you know, well could you just take this, in Ephesus, could you take this down to the nursery because I wanted to talk to the little children for a minute.

How many of you think this is a little bit heavy for little children? Do you see that what I'm trying to indicate to you is that this is a metaphor, he's using a metaphor for his church and I believe that all three of these statements, little children, fathers, and young men, are metaphors.

He's not literally saying, okay, I want everybody else to tune out, by the way, you're going to notice a lack of, I mean, there's not really women mentioned in there, so all of you can just kind of sit back and jab your husband with your elbow if you want while you're here.

Or what about single, you know, single ladies, are they mentioned in there? Or what about middle-aged men? Okay, I follow through the cracks and so good, I don't have to worry about any of this or whatever.

Are you getting what I'm saying? It's a metaphor that he's using here to break the church up into chunks. So when he speaks to little children here, and he's going to provide some encouragement to the little children, he's speaking to everyone.

And when he's going to speak to fathers, he's going to be speaking to those who are more mature in the faith. They've been kicking it with Jesus for a while, they've been around with him, they've been hanging out with Jesus for a longer duration of time.

Now that doesn't mean age, although sometimes it is, right? It makes sense that you've had more time to be with Jesus if you're older and you came to faith in Christ younger, but how many of you know that to be spiritually mature, how many of you have met a young man or a young woman who is mature beyond their years in.

Christ?

Have you encountered that? Where you're like, wow, 20-something and putting me to shame, okay? They have redeemed the time for Christ, they have been focused and purposeful in their growth in Christ, and it's like, wow, that's impressive.

And then I think we've all experienced, maybe we just need to look no further than ourselves, where you know somebody who ought to be further along in their spiritual walk than they are, probably best for you to think of yourself in that context, but in all honesty, we could get to the point where we're 60, 70, 80 years old and go, you know what, I have not redeemed the time.

I have been walking with Christ for 40, 50 years, and I haven't grown deeper in the things that I know I need to. So all that I'm saying is that this isn't necessarily age-related, but it's maturity-related in what he is trying to communicate to everyone.

And he's, by the way, there's something that's unique here, is that he is not going to ask, he's not going to take those who are more mature and ask you to categorize yourself right now. He's not going to say, now you're supposed to be sitting there thinking, which of these encouragements is for me?

Because he's going to say it to all of us, and there's something beautiful about that, because he's going to get together with the church and say, hey church, all of you little children, listen, here's some encouragement for you.

And then he's going to break that group down and say, now those of you in the group that are more mature, here's some encouragement for you, but guess who gets to listen in to.

That?

All of us.

And then he's going to say, those of you who are younger in the faith and are newer, here's some things for you to take encouragement on, but we all get to listen in, and there's.

A beauty.

Are you getting what I'm saying? We all get to listen in to the entire thing, and there's benefit in that. And so to his entire church, he reminds them of two things, and you can advance the slide.

There.

He reminds them that, number one, their sins have been forgiven for his namesake, all of you.

Think this through.

If you are in Christ and you are the true church, then your sins have been forgiven for his namesake, and two, you know the Father. Two things that John wants to communicate. Now there's a lot of things that John could say in an attempt to lift the faces of those who are troubled by their sins, right?

Is there a lot of different things he could zero in on? Can you think of some encouragement he could provide to people who are feeling like, boy, you've just been talking with me about sin. He's just taking us through the ringer, telling us in no uncertain terms, remember, hey, everybody, church, you all have sin, and if you say you don't have sin, then you're lying.

Oh, thanks, John. Appreciate that. I needed your help in saying that to me. And then he goes on to say earlier that your obedience is somehow tied to the process of assurance of your salvation. So it kind of left a little bit of a conundrum there, and John doesn't resolve the conundrum for us, and so you're left kind of going, now wait a minute, you've just said we all sin, and yet you've also told us that somehow obedience to the law, or keeping the law, keeping the commands, is a way of telling that you're in with Christ.

But I don't always keep the commands, and you've just gotten done saying I don't always keep the commands, so he leaves this tension in us. And so he didn't resolve that by telling us how much, and some of you might have left last week with a little bit of tension, and I can't, by the way, I can't bring myself to answer things that John doesn't.

I don't want to resolve tensions that he leaves hanging. If he left them hanging, then he wanted to leave them hanging, and I have to, so there are times when I feel compelled to preach to you, and you're going to feel like I left you hanging, because the Spirit hasn't revealed a way for me to close the loose ends for you.

Some of you would just love it if I could close a lot of loose ends for you, and just tie it up and sew it up really nice and neat, but John refused to. He didn't tell us, did anybody walk out of here last week saying, how much must I love my brothers and sisters in Christ to know that I'm in?

How much? Just tell me, if you could give me a line in the sand and say, if you do this, then you're all in. Is anybody, like, likes that kind of defined black and white thinking? Am I the only one? Okay, a few more hands went up.

Let me ask that question again. Is there anybody here who likes things defined for you so that you know in or out? It's just kind of like easier that way. He didn't tell us how much you have to love. He didn't tell us how much you have to obey to have assurance.

He didn't tell us how much you must look like Jesus to feel secure in your faith. He just said, those things need to be in your life. You need to take a measurement and say, do I have love for my brothers and sisters in.

Christ?

Am I growing in Christ-likeness? Do I have a zeal for the word of God and for pleasing him, matching his desires? Do I want that? So when he comes in with the reminder that our sins are forgiven, that is supposed to bring a smile back to our faces.

Oh, that's right, okay. All of this, am I in, am I out, your sins have been forgiven. If you are in Christ, they are done away with. He's seeking to restore joy in us. And I want to suggest to you that part of aiming higher in the Christian life is shooting for joy, not just obedience.

Aiming for joy. Shooting for celebration and not self-loathing. Our sins have been forgiven for his name's sake, according to the text. And it's interesting, I do not think for a second that, I think absolutely that John was thinking the name of Jesus Christ when he penned this phrase, for his name's sake.

Your sins are forgiven for his name. What does the name Jesus Christ mean? Jesus Christ, the name, the phrase, Jesus Christ is the gospel. Did you know that? If you translate the word Jesus and the word Christ, Christ means the anointed one of God, Jesus means who takes away sins.

So what do you have when you say Jesus Christ? You are saying the anointed one of God who takes away our sins. That's the gospel. The gospel is in his name, so that we are forgiven for his name's sake ties right in with the actual meaning of the name of Jesus.

It's like his name is fulfilled in the gospel. The one who takes away, the anointed one of God, who takes away our sins. And our sins have been forgiven for his name's sake. John is confident that his readers have come to know the Father.

That's an amazing thing when we really break it down. Jesus reveals the Father to us, and we know Jesus, and if we know Jesus, then we know.

The Father.

In no uncertain terms, John is here telling us that the Christian faith is one of relationship and not merely religious duty or religious action. Those of you, all of you little children, those of you who are in Christ, John is writing and saying, you have come to know, is that a relational word?

To know someone? You have come into a relationship with the Father. Now, people will tell you, you know, and I think it's kind of popular on the internet and some young churches and young pastors are kind of going around saying, you know, it's not about religion, it's not about religion, it's not about religion, and I'm one of them.

You're going to hear me say that a lot. It is not about religion. If you define religion as a man-made way of appeasing God or trying to accomplish his will and make it so that he likes you better, that is not the Christian message.

That is not the message of this book. The message of this book is that you couldn't appease him. Religion couldn't accomplish it, and what you needed was you needed a Savior and you needed a relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ.

At the heart of our faith is a relationship of knowing the God of the universe. God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, in a reconciled relationship with you and me. That's an awesome thing.

If you can wrap your mind around the idea that the one who made it all, the one who sustains it all, is the one who wants a relationship with you and me and has set forth the plan to reconcile us to him through his Son, it's an amazing, glorious thing.

I can't imagine anything more amazing than that. If you know Jesus, then you have come to know the Father, the creator of all. But now to those more mature in the faith, John says, you know or you have come to know Jesus who is from the beginning.

You can go ahead and bring that next one up. Fathers, you have come to know Jesus. Fathers, you have come to know Jesus. Do you see that in the text that he actually says it twice? Verse 13, beginning, I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.

Verse 14, I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. Is he a broken record? Is he skipping? What's going on here? Well, first, let me just start off by saying the phrase, have come to know, implies a deeper time-tested growth in the Greek language.

It's not just, how many of you would say, I've come to know Jesus? Just raise your hand if you'd testify, I've come to know Jesus. But this is a way of saying in Greek, I have come to know him in a further down the road kind of way.

There's been an initial introduction, and most of us who raised our hand, we are acknowledging that I've been introduced to Jesus. But have you come to know him? Have you been using the time in your life since you came to first meet him to get to know him?

How many of you know the difference between an acquaintance and a friend? It's a good distinction. You need to know that. I mean, if you don't know the difference, then there's going to be a life issue for.

You.

But we know the difference. I've met them once. Yeah, I shook hands with them at a party one time or something or whatever, versus I've come to know them. And that's what the Greek implies here, is that I've got an ongoing friendship and relationship with Jesus.

It's a relationship, it's not just academic study, it's not that these who are more mature have necessarily read more, and therefore have more academic head knowledge of him, but they've experienced life with him.

And John is basically commending them for growth in the knowledge and the relationship with him who is from the beginning, who throughout the book of 1 John has always been Jesus. John states this twice, as I mentioned, verses 13 and 14, and I believe he does so to emphasize the centrality of growth in Jesus.

It's not like he's stuttering, it's not like he's skipping, he's like, oh, I forgot I said that in 13, so I said it in 14 again, but it is very, very central. By commending the more mature in a letter to the entire church, he shows their growth as something to strive for.

So, it's not that I want you to sit here and that the logical outflow of this message right now is for you to sit there and go, am I mature or am I not mature? The thing is, how well do I know Jesus and am I buying back the time to grow in relationship with him?

Now, granted, there are people in this church who are at various stages of spiritual maturity and we know that, and so our tendency is going to be to want to define ourselves, and that's not an altogether bad thing to be introspective, but ultimately, all of us need to ask ourselves, it's not about crossing a line.

Spiritual maturity is not about a time when I go, okay, now I know Jesus and I'm good. Every single person in growth, in faith, community, and service is the goal here at Recast Church. That's our stated growth map.

That wherever you come to us from, that there is something you can be growing in, you can be growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service, expanding those things.

Out.

It's actually hard to diagram, and Kyle and I have talked about that before, how do we diagram our growth map here? Some churches have the bases, the ball diamond, and you grow in faith first, and then you grow in community, and then you grow in service, and now you've got home.

But the problem is, it's a cycle where I want everybody I can't even visualize that. I want first base to be growing. I want second base to be growing. I want third base to be growing, and I want us all to be on all three at the same time.

That linear progression, I mean, everybody wants linear progression, right? That's the way the modern mind thinks, and it's the way the American mind thinks is, well, what's my next step? Well, your next step is, listen to the Spirit, and have Him tell you what that next step is, but it's going to be pertaining to one of those three areas, faith, community, or service, and constantly, ever

Those are integrated, right? There's overlap between them, and they're constantly to be growing in our lives. That was a little bit extra there. John is saying here in our text, you want to grow Those of you who are just kind of sensing, maybe I'm a little bit younger in my faith.

Maybe some of you in this room, I recognize, haven't been with Christ for very long. You've given your life to Him within the last year or two, and so John is saying, you want to grow into a mature believer, grow in your relationship to Jesus Christ.

Grow in your knowledge of Jesus Christ. There are no shortcuts to maturity. There's no seven-step program. There's no pill you can take, but the hard work of a sometimes hard-to-define relationship with Jesus Christ is the answer.

That's the pathway forward.

I say that because it is. If you are in a relationship with Jesus Christ, it's much like a relationship that you have with other people in your life. How many of you know that relationships get messy?

They get difficult to define, and there's ins and outs of relationship, right?

That's the nature.

When I say a difficult-to-define relationship, all of us I think there's a part of each one of us that likes things well-defined. I say to my wife, just give me a list of when to get you flowers, and I'll buy them for.

You.

Could you select them maybe? You could just pick them out online, and I'll pay for them or something. How many of you know that doesn't work? It doesn't work that way. The women are like, dude, for real?

That's not the way it works, but relationships can get kind of confusing and difficult, and it's like that with God, right? Sometimes I put my head on the pillow at night, close my eyes, and pray and talk with God, and I'm like, don't feel really close to you tonight.

I don't feel like I walked with you very well today.

How are we?

Are we kind of on the outs right now? Are we okay? Do you know?

Are you relating with what I'm talking about?

But that's the pathway forward is a relationship where you're actually putting your head on the pillow and praying and talking with him through it. That's part of the relationship. That's what's growing you.

That's what's building you.

Prayer.

Spending time in his word to know what delights him, not spending time in the word just because you got a checkbox and got to get through the Bible in a year. I'd actually rather you get a little bit behind in your Bible reading but spend some time getting to know God, right?

And I mean, you're getting to know him through there, but don't get so wrapped up in this that, boy, I just have to read this next day, and you're not connecting with him through that because you're so far behind that you're trying to get caught up, and I think we've all been there.

At least a lot of us have been there. Go ahead and spend time getting to know him. Walk with him. The interesting thing is here in the text, he will not commend those who are spiritually mature for two things he refuses to.

He says, I'm not going to pick two because there's one thing that matters most. It is your connection with Jesus Christ. That's what matters most, and the more mature in the church that John is writing to, we're getting that, and he was satisfied and happy with that, and he said, just roll with that.

I commend you because you have come to know Jesus, and you are walking in relationship with him. And now he goes on to give encouragement to those newer in their faith. So that kind of the last subset here, he repeats to them twice that they have overcome the evil one.

He says that twice, and then he tacks on at the end. I think it's at the end of verse, is it 14? Yeah. He tacks on. You have overcome the evil one, and you are strong, and the word of God abides, the word abides in you.