Final Directions
1 John • Sermon • Submitted
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· 6 viewsJohn leaves clear directions about our reasons for assurance.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Would you like to drive if there were no lines on the road?
Or what about when you pull up to an intersection and all four of the lights are flashing red? I have determined that nothing paralyzes people more than that. They want something definite, not something they have to decide.
We like directions, instructions, a finger to point, “this way.”
John knows that. He realizes that his readers, who have been so upended by the strange teaching which has assaulted their ears need something definite. Here is how you know.
What would you say to people after you have said all you have said. That’s what John does in this final passage of his first letter.
He leaves them with something solid upon which they can rest their lives.
Discussion
Discussion
The Purpose of the Letter
The Purpose of the Letter
Every writer has a “why?” Good ones let you see it. John has a why of writing. His audience has been unsettled by their foreign teaching of secret knowledge beyond their ability. They have been told they don’t really know God. And yet, John wants to swat that notion away.
John writes two different kinds of material.
He wrote a gospel that bears his name, the Gospel of John. In that book, he reveals the reason he writes what he does:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
The gospel is written to convince men that Jesus is the Christ.
In this first letter, he is just as transparent.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
While the gospel crooked a finger and said, “come, believe this.” The letter did not have the purpose of convincing them to believe.
Instead, the letter has the purpose of confirmation. He writes to people who already believe but who need their faith set in concrete. He wants to strengthen the believer.
His theme is simple..you who believe already know you have eternal life.
The word “know” is a double entandre, a codeword. He steals it out of the mouths of the false teachers who say “we know.” John says, you stole it from us and we want it back because we know we have eternal life.
He uses it as a settled state. It’s not a body of knowledge. Instead their knowledge becomes the pedestal of their lives. They are born of God, they keep the commandments, they love one another, they believe Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh. Those central tenets of Christianity give them this settled knowledge of the truth.
And it gives them something—eternal life. In our last lesson, we met the term. It is not living forever. It is living with God. For John, it is always walking beside us on earth. We have a quality of life today that comes because we believe the Christ. It is eternity now, not later.
So, as he has solidified this faith, he reminds them of the basis for their assurance.
What God has done by giving them birth.
How their lives show that birth.
How full are their lives with Jesus in them.
It is something we need to tattoo on our hearts.
But this is not an idle theological concept. John blows the dust off of the heady language and says, let’s look at what it does in our lives. And he moves to something we know well....prayer.
Prayer
Prayer
Listen to verse 14:
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
He uses the word confidence, but it is better to call it openness or freedom of speech. That’s more of what it means.
Why talk about openness? It seems so apparent to us, only because we have had a steady diet of the sense John brings.
But it was a foreign idea. No one came to someone of power on their own. They were barred from coming to the imposing .
The Old Testament story of Esther reveals this ancient world mindset. Esther is selected as a replacement queen. But it apparent that she does not see the king unless summoned. Her uncle Mordecai asks her to plead the case of the persecuted Jewish captives. Esther reluctantly agrees.
“Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
For her, showing up and speaking her mind unbidden could cost her life. Such were the perils.
And the Jews felt that way about God as well.
In Exodus 20, the children of Israel came to Sinai. It was terrifying, smoke and cloud and fire. It thundered. God was there. But they did not want to talk with God.
and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
Such was the problem. But John says the Christians have openness, this freedom of speech of a close and intimate relationship. Never take it for granted for it has not always been that way.
It was dramatic to these people in ways we struggle to understand. The false teachers hid God behind secret language and mystical knowledge. The Jews hid God behind the robes of the high priest.
Now, it was the children of God speaking to their loving Father.
And he tells them that prayer has this tenor of openess and freedom. It is not like a 16-year-old boy begging keys to the car from his scowling father. It is different.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: 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 what we asked of him.
This passage speaks to our prayers.
First, God listens. We approach someone who both understands our needs and cares about them.
Second, it tells us something about ourselves. When John describes the prayer of the Christians, he sounds a distinct tone. It is not a Christmas list handed to Santa. The sentences are not punctuated with “gimme.”
The attitude portrayed is that of not what we want but what God wants. A Christian commitment wants what God wants, not what he or she wants. Our hearts beat in rhythm with the heart of God.
Third, it describes answers. God always grants according to his will. There are no “nos” in God’s vocabulary. The problem is our language and God’s language is not always the same. We think anything that doesn’t happen on our timetable is rejection. Actually, God is working out the right pieces in the right time to accomplish the right purpose. Can you pray with that in mind?
Faith must temper disappointment. If we truly want God’s will be done, we accept all answers as God doing what is best. We accept God’s answer as affirmation in spite of our feeble attempts to understand it.
But John doesn’t come to talk about prayer in general. He is talking about a particular prayer.
If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that.
Now, moderns sink into a theological quagmire when we step into this verse. We are confronted with something—two categories. There is sin not to death and sin to death.
We need to back off a little bit before we return to the true thrust of this passage. We like to watch the shiny baubles of scripture’s difficulties and miss the main point. Let us take a short detour to grasp these difficulties.
When the terms come, they are not foreign to John’s readers. They know exactly what he means when he says a sin that does not lead to death and a sin that leads to death. John did not explain it. It is clear that they nod their heads in easy agreement with these terms.
But for us…we are buried in the silt of church history and diverse interpretations. It is like we are listening to one end of a telephone conversation. We hear the words without the context.
So strap in and let us chase the rabbit of the sin unto death.
It is not a particular sin. That has been an error since the close of the New Testament. In the third century, the desert fathers, the ascetics trying to escape the tug of the world wanted to know what sins John was speaking of. So, they started thinking. They assembled a list, a list today called “the seven deadly sins.” The sins were lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. It sounds good but every church dinner would doom some to hell! Over time, this was reinforced by the writings of Dante and Chaucer.
But the language is particular. it in unfortunate the way translations have put it.
The New International Version says it is “the sin that leads to death.” It is even more confusing that the Revised Standard Version says it is “a mortal sin.” Sometimes clarity muddies the water!
John says “sin toward death.” It has a vector, a direction. It is something, that at the end of the road, you encounter death.
But what is it? We could delve into a myriad of interpretations only to find ourselves tied in more confusion.
Perhaps it is best to discuss it this way.
Elie Wiesel was a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust. Once freed, he devoted his life to finding the animals that butchered so many human beings. He believed they should be held accountable for horrid actions.
He was asked about definitions of words, words hard to define, words like love and hate. He said:
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
That is the best way to describe it. Indifference. It turns its back on God and on truth. It doesn’t listen to gospel but wallows in self-indulgent. It is irritated by God talk.
I’ve known people who have said, “leave me alone.” That’s indifference.
But this verse bothers people. I have had more than one person ask to see me to ask a question. They say, “I think I have committed the sin that leads to death, and I am worried.” To ask the question is the answer it. They may be confused, guilty, uninformed, or hurting, but they are anything but indifferent. They are concerned about their spiritual lives. That means no matter, there is hope.
It is only once someone closes and bolts the door of their heart that danger lurks in their darkness.
But, let’s return to the point John is making. He says
If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that.
If you see someone who commits sin not to death, meaning they have an attitude in which they could change, they can listen, they can be brought back, pray to God and God will give them life. Don’t stretch it out of shape. The rest of the book defines the terms of life—believe, obedience, and love…but this person has hope and you should pray for them.
But, the one who is indifferent, we can do nothing about. God doesn’t compel people to believe at the point of a spiritual spear. It is something presented and pleaded for and people respond. The people to pray for are those who have a responsiveness.
It sounds harsh doesn’t it? Don’t pray for that skunk. But he never says turn your back on them, kick dirt on them, or call down curses on them. Instead, we find enough people who are struggling that needs the prayer of the saints, including faces we see in the mirror each day.
But don’t miss the point. As the editor said to the young journalism student, “don’t bury the lead.” The lead is we have the openess to pray for the people we know who are caught in sin and are looking for a way out. When someone is sinking in sin’s quicksand, we have a lifeline in prayer.
It would be a huge error to start worrying about words and let people sink.
But the final idea is that we, as God’s children, have protection.
Protection
Protection
The book ends with the resounding cymbal of “we know.”
We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
What do we know?
We know our spiritual birth changes our view of sin. We fight sin, slip and fall and confess, and rise to fight again. It is not something accepted as humanity but battled as an enemy in our lives.
We know that God protects us.
John says that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. Satan roams the earth like a hyena waiting to pick off the wounded. Think of the book of Job. The devil has free rein to destroy everything that made up the life of Job—his wealth, his possessions, his family, his health. Wherever evil is, the devil is in the shadow.
But John assures his readers “we know that God keeps us safe.” John says that God doesn’t let the evil one put his hand on our lives and take hold of us. Like a mother bear tearing a cub away from the jaws of a wolf, is what God does for us. He doesn’t eliminate temptation but our hope is in the deliverance.
Third, we know God lets us understand. We have been given “understanding.” At its root is the word mind. We can grasp reality. That’s the perspective of God’s birth. We can see the why of evil and the consequences. We can see the way out, the deliverance. We understand in ways that those who do not believe will never understand life. We have a complete picture, not just scattered puzzle pieces.
Fourth, we know what is genuine.
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Three times in this verse, John talks about what is “true.” He uses a word which means genuine. The one who is true is Jesus himself. He is the genuine savior, the genuine source of truth, the genuine God. In a world of clever spiritual marketing, it helps to know the real from the imagined. Our faith is in the Christ not the fraudulent.
Then, the letter ends in a strange way. No sincerely and a signature but a warning.
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
Why end with idols? We might be tempted to use this as a throwaway verse because we don’t have idols, we might say. But, are you sure?
In John’s home town of Ephesus, there were idols. There was, as we read in Acts, a massive temple to Diana. It was there that Paul was almost torn apart by a self-appointed cleanup mob. Heraclitus was called the weeping prophet for a reason.He said that the darkness to the approach of the altar of the Temple was the darkness of vileness; that the morals of the Temple were worse than the morals of animals; that the inhabitants of Ephesus were fit only to be drowned, and that the reason that he could never smile was that he lived in the middle of such terrible uncleanness.
Today, silversmiths and sculptors of deities are rare. But an idol is anything that substitutes itself for God’s place in human lives. It doesn’t have to be carved in stone or wood…only in the human heart. Today, idols go by different names. Success. Wealth, Prosperity. Power. Position. Independence.
John says don’t fool yourself. Don’t fall for some clever facsimile of God’s power. Because of all the things John speaks us, this may be the most modern and the closest to all of us. Keep yourselves from idols.
Conclusion
Conclusion
John puts down the pen, rolls the scroll and hands it to an assistant. Today, we read the parchment paper and it says, “Dear children...
You are born of God and have the best life available on planet earth. It may not be free of pain but it is full of eternity. Rest assured because it is not a matter of how you feel or what a man says. It is because of the work God has done in you.
These are words of comfort but also ideas we must revisit and remind ourselves of, because we have selective spiritual amnesia.
Jesus is the Christ, come in the flesh. Many voices try to tatter that simple element of faith. Haughty academics and polished sophists today tell us Jesus was a great teacher, a moral guide, a light among lights. None of that is true. He is God come to earth. We follow him completely or reject him completely. Don’t fool yourself into some watered-down Jesus.
We lovingly keep God’s commandment. We realize how much he has done for us. And, when he asks for anything, how could we not respond to that kind of love?
And we love one another. Our Christianity is not dry doctrinal precepts or pious pronouncements. It beats with the heart of Christ himself. And those born of God get different eyes, to see the hurt Jesus saw, and give as he did.
And with that, John leaves his desk. But what happened to the old man?
After the letters, an animal came to the Roman throne, a tyrant who demanded complete praise, a man named Domitian. Domitian unleashed fury among the Christians. It was a time of the breaking of bones and the spurting of blood. John was banished to an isolated rock in the Mediterranean called Patmos. There, he saw the grand vision of time and God’s power and witnessed the new heaven and the new earth. Domitian finally died and Trajan allowed John to return to Ephesus. He was approaching his century mark, feeble and frail. Each Lord’s day, men would take him by his arms and seat him in the big seat in the front of the church. They would ask for his wisdom as the last man on earth who had watched Jesus leave this earth. And each week, he would look and say, “little children…let us love one another.”
He had a faith stronger than teachers and traitors. And he wrote that and left that so we can as well. Remember, we are born of God.