John has proclaimed amazing words of encouragement and hope. In the second chapter of 1 John the author has declared that he is writing so that we will not sin. But if we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. God has provided the defense attorney we need. Jesus is the advocate and helper needed because of our sins. God is light and in him there is no darkness at all (cf. 1 John 1:5). Therefore, our sins are a very big problem, separating us from having a relationship with the Father. But we have an advocate. We have Jesus who is the propitiation for our sins and for the sins of the whole world. Since the advocate, Jesus Christ, has been appointed on our behalf, then we need to know the advocate. So how do we know that he is our advocate? How do we know that he is interceding for us? How do we know that his atoning sacrifice for sins have been applied to us? John is going to answer this question in 1 John 2. Please open your copies of God’s word to 1 John 2:3-6.
Knowing That We Know Jesus (1 John 2:3-4)
John says in 1 John 2:3 that the way we can know that have come to know Jesus is that we keep his commands. So does that help? If John means that if we ever sin then that means we do not know Jesus, then I do not think that this would help since John has plainly said that anyone who says that they have not sinned is a liar (1 John 1:8,10). Because of what John taught in chapter 1, I do not think it would be accurate to say that John’s point here is that the person who knows Jesus will never sin but will always keep his commands. What is John pointing to so that his readers can know if they have come to know Jesus?
One of the key points that the scriptures frequently make is that those who belong to God are going to have their lives so radically changed that it will be observed by their fruits of the lives that they live for God and not for themselves. Let’s spend a few moments looking at some of those passages.
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:25-27 ESV)
God through the prophet Ezekiel looks to the time of Christ when God will rescue his people. You will notice that God was going to cleanse the people from their idolatrous ways and give them a new heart and a new spirit. What will the new heart and new spirit do? The picture God reveals is that we will have sensitive hearts to his will. We will not have a heart of stone but a heart of flesh. This means that we will not stubbornly follow our desires but have soft hearts to listen and change to conform to the Spirit’s will. The power of God’s word and God’s love will cause you to walk in his ways and to be careful to obey his rules. Notice that the prophet Jeremiah made the same prophetic utterance.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34 ESV)
Notice that the picture of knowing God means God’s law being written on the hearts of his people. If we looked at the proclamation backward I think we can see the progression. Who are those that God promises to forgive their sins and remember them no more? The answer is those who know the Lord. Who are those that know the Lord? The answer is those who have God’s law written on their hearts so that they are in relationship with him. He will be their God and they will be his people. The prophets were teaching that those who know God will be changed from the inside out so that the fruit will be seen in their following God’s laws and God’s ways. The New Testament makes this point in many places. Consider one place in which the apostle Paul writes to the Galatians.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:22-24 ESV)
The people who know the Lord are going to have a new heart and a new spirit which will produce observable fruit. Now come back to what John is saying in 1 John 2:3. We know that we know Jesus our Advocate if we do what he says. In other words, we know that we know Jesus if we can see the fruit in our lives that shows we have this relationship with him. Now this fits what John says in verse 4. A person cannot say that they know Jesus and have this relationship with him and not bear fruit in keeping with that relationship. We cannot say that we know him and not do what he has told us to do. Knowing Jesus results in fruit. If we do not have the fruit, then we must not know him. We are liars if we say we know Jesus but the results of that relationship are not clearly seen.
I had this conversation with a person once who was telling me about a friend of mine who was just always causing him problems. Now I also knew this man well and everything I was being told was completely out of character with what I knew. The conclusion that I drew was that I did not believe that this person really knew my friend. This is the idea that John is getting at with his readers. If you knew Jesus, then you would not talk the way you talk. If you really knew Jesus, then you would not be acting the way you act. If you knew Jesus, then there would be a radical change in how you live your life. As Paul would describe it in Ephesians 4, there would be such a radical transformation in who you are that we would say that the old self has been put to death and a new self has been created in the likeness of God.
John is warning us that we can say that we know him. But if we knew him, then we would not be saying and doing the things that go against his character and his commands. Now I want us to think about how people today try to claim that they know Jesus. You will notice that John does not say that if you said a prayer asking Jesus into your heart, then you know that you have a relationship with him. I would like to make the strong point right here that the scriptures never instruct anyone to pray for Jesus to come into their hearts to become a disciple of Jesus. But let us not stop there. John does not say that you know that you know Jesus because you go to church every week. That is also not the test. John does not say that you know that you know Jesus if you make sure to take the Lord’s Supper each first day of the week. John does not even say that you know that you know Jesus if you were baptized for the forgiveness of your sins. What is the test? How can we know that we know Jesus? We know that we know him if we have been radically changed so that we desire to keep his commands. You need to be baptized. You need to worship the Lord. You need to remember the Lord’s sacrifice on the first day of every week. But if you have not been changed to desire to keep his commands, then you do not know Jesus and he is not your advocate. Notice that this is exactly the point John makes in verses 5-6.
God’s Love Perfected (1 John 2:5-6)
Notice that John says in verse 5 that obedience to Jesus says something about us. John says that whoever keeps his word, in that person the love of God is truly made perfect or complete. Since John says that God’s love is being made perfect or made complete, then this must refer to our love for him rather than his love for us. Now this sets up verse 5 for a beautiful picture. John does not just tell his audience to just obey. Just do what God says! That is not the motivation nor the way John wants to convince us to obey the Lord Jesus. Please think about how often religion puts forward the idea that you just need to do what God says without concern for having love or a relationship with God. God’s point is not that we just do something or not do something. Jesus never taught that he did not care about our motivation for him. Just do what he says. God never said that he did not care if you loved him or not. Just don’t do bad things. In fact, one of the problems Jesus is dealing with regarding the Pharisees is how the outside of the cup looked good but inside of the cup (the motivation, the reasoning, the heart) was corrupted (cf. Matthew 23:25-26; Luke 11:39). Friends, this is the problem with thinking that we can just be a good, moral person and go to heaven. God never said to just not do bad stuff and to do good stuff in life. Doing good things or not being a bad person is not how Jesus becomes our advocate. What is the first and greatest command? The greatest command is to love the Lord your God. The greatest command is not to just do the commandments. Rather, relationship with God is the greatest commandment which will bear the fruit of obedience to his word. This is what John is proclaiming in this paragraph. You do not know God if you do not listen and do what he says.
How is Jesus our advocate? The love of God is in our hearts which then is displayed in our actions. We know that we love God and our love for him is coming to maturity by keeping his word. Doing what God says is how we know our love for God is growing and changing us. We should be able to look over our time with God and see that our love for God is maturing. To say this another way, look at verse 6. We know that we are in him and live in him by living how Jesus lived. We will follow in the footsteps of Jesus if we love him.
Now I hope we can see why sin is such a big deal. John is showing us the problem of sin and disobedience. Disobedience means that we do not love God. Now we might want to disagree with this truth. But this is the truth. Let me illustrate it. If you children choose to disobey you, do they love you? No, they are showing that they do not. They can say that they love you but at the end of the day they do not because they are not honoring you by listening to your words and doing what you said. But we often want to think that we love God but at the end of the day not do what God has asked us to do. The problem of sin is that we are not honoring God by listening to what he says and doing it. Now Jesus made this point plainly.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15 ESV)
So if we do not keep his commands, the conclusion to draw is that we do not love him. We will explore this idea deeper in our next lesson, Lord willing. But for today’s lesson, John is teaching us that the love of God is being perfected by keeping his word. In fact, John says in verse 6 that whoever is in relationship with God (abides in him) must live their lives as Jesus did. We are obligated to listen to him if we love him.
Conclusion
I want us to see that our hope in knowing that we have eternal life and complete joy in Christ is not found in our feelings. This is a point John will make later. But I want to observe that this is coming out in his teaching now. Knowing Jesus is not about how you feel about him today. We know if we know him by looking at the fruit of our lives. We know that we know Jesus if we are striving to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. We know that we know Jesus if we have soft hearts that are listening to what he says and not rejecting his words with hard hearts. I also want us to see that knowing Jesus means striving to obey Jesus. We cannot know Jesus and not be striving to live in the light. We cannot have Jesus as our advocate who is interceding for us for our sins and not have the love of God maturing in us to desire obedience. The transformation is to move from knowing that I have to obey to him to wanting to obey him. I want to follow him because he is my advocate. I want to listen to him because I know I need cleansing. I want to serve him because of who he is and what he has done for me. If you know Jesus, then this will be your heart’s desire and you will keep his word.