Abide: Session 7: Overcoming the World

 

In session 7, we look at Chapter 5 of 1 John.

Verses 1-2. "Born of God". (The test of truth). "Loves Father", "loves whoever born of him" (Test of love). Test of righteousness - three summary statements.  "Who believes" - a deep-rooted belief.

Verse 3. "Not burdensome".  Sin is burdensome, but not God's commands.  They are difficult.  It is work.  If we think they're burdensome, we will complain and avoid.

Verses 4-5. "Overcome". Means we are quicker to repent and slower to repeat.  Keeping God's commands is one form in overcoming the world.  God's commandments find their origin in Him.  The more we understand this, the more we will value His commands.  We "overcome" the world one experience at a time. Help us to hate what you hate God.

Verses 6-8. We are shifting here into legal language: testify and testimony. A court room.  Matthew 18:20 is not referring to gathering 2 to 3 people in prayer.  It's actually referring to the need to establish credibility of a witness based on 2 or 3 witnesses.  So, here, we have 3 witnesses: water, blood, spirit.  He is establishing the truths of the claims of Jesus Christ according to 3 witnesses.  Look at Deut. 19:15.  Think of all the places in the Bible of establishing 2 or 3 witnesses for credibility: Revelations, birth of Jesus, temple, Abraham (3 men), Sodom and G, Garden of Eden.  Why water and blood? Exodus adventure: the sea and the blood on posts.  Moses tabernacle: laver of water (water), altar of sacrifice (blood), holy of holies (spirit).  Reference John 19:31-35.  He's showing that Jesus was human and actually suffered death, not what the gnostics believe.  The Spirit descends on the day of Pentecost: water, blood and Spirit. 

Verses 9-12. He says the Spirit is the test of truth, water is the test of righteousness, blood relates to the test of love.

Verses 9-10. "Greater". Testimony of man and the testimony of God.  He's referring to the spirit of the antichrist versus the Spirit of truth.  Which one is greater? The Spirit of truth.

Verse 12. More than saved from death but "life" as described in John 10.  No spiritual lack.

Fear of man is the beginning of folly but the fear of God, as in Proverbs, is the beginning of wisdom.

Abdundant life is for the one who will run the race for the testimony of the Lord.

Two questions:

1. What commandment do we find to be burdensome?

2. How is our life a testimony to eternal life?

Next: Session 8: "That You May Know"

Abide: Session 6: Truth and Error: God is Love

 

John introduces the idea of "Spirit" in the last verse we saw in chapter 3:24.  We start now with 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4:1-3. Notice he starts with "beloved" because of what he is going to share on love, not with "little children." All through scripture we see "anti-christs" (i.e. satan, Cain etc). Testing spirits we have the Holy Spirit and the spirit of the anti-christ.  The sense of the text here on "test the spirits" is not demonic. It's this: see if this is representative of the Spirit of God or the spirit of error.  He's actually saying "don't be gullible." He will also tell us how to test.  Beware of books that people are saying "God told me this" etc. This is a watered-down version of gnoticism.  Those books take up more of our thinking space than the Bible.

Verses 1-2. He's relating spirit to flesh here.  He's pushing back on what others have said that Jesus was only a spirit and only appeared in the flesh.

Verses 3-4. A "greater than" here also in John 3:20 "greater than our hearts." 

Verse 5.  "They" - antichrists. "From the world" or they went out from us.

Verse 6. "We" - apostles.  By this they can discern because of who listens to them.  Study the real thing (the Bible). We can't identify false teaching by asking if it is false but we have to know truth in order to identify false teaching.

Verses 7-12. Test of love. "Born of God" (John).  He speaks as Jesus does.  He send Him to be the "mercy seat" (propitiation) - the covering over, the ark, the manifest presence of God.  Luke about the Pharisee and sinner, he's actually saying "God be mercy-seated" to me a sinner.  A word picture here that between God and the sinner is the mercy seat. Verse 11 refers to His love manifested in us.  Sinners must see God's love in us.  God's love is perfected in us by producing loving fruit and actions.  We don't like the fact that God is invisible.  This gives false teachers the leeway to "paint" God as they want.

Verse 13-16. Spirit, Father and Son. Trinity here.  

God is Love. What's the problem with people saying this who do not have God abiding in them? They have reduced God to being only love.

John is making a point here when he says this that we cannot hate our brothers and still call ourselves a follower of Christ.  He has many more attributes than that.  OT shows compassion, mercy and grace of God.  We must spend time in all scripture, if we want to have a full view of God.

Verse 17-18a. Another verse that gets pulled out of context.  He's talking about the kind of confidence that allows you to stand on the day of judgment and not fear anything.  "As He is in the world, so also are we." Because as God's son is, so also are we God's children in this world.  Children don't have to gear punishment from the Father.  It's already been taken care of.

Verse 18. What kind of fear is cast out by perfect love? The fear of standing and receiving punishment from God. For the believer, that fear is gone forever.  One fear we need though "the fear of the Lord." "There is no fear in love" - been used wrongly.  we are not wrong to feel legitament fear.  We can lovingly be guided toward a better orientation.  The Christian life is not fear-free but we have a God who guides us in our natural fears. 

Verse 19. God's love was first directed toward us.

Verse 20. We have many visible things were can show our love and deep affection to.

Verse 21. John is dancing around the idea of the great commandment.  This is a deal breaker. Luke 10:25-29 - Jesus does not answer with a statement but a question.This man tries to justify himself by asking "who is my neighbor?"  So where's the line?  The attitude is "what's the bare minimum?"

Verses 30-31. The Jews would have understood this scene. 

Verse 32. The Levite here - the Jews get it.  The priest and the Levite passing by. But the Samaritan shows up.  Racism against them from the Jews.  Half-breeds.  Bad hatred exists.

Verses 33-34. He had compassion.  God describes Himself to Moses as a God of compasstion.  Samaritan has oil/wine with him.  He has an animal.

Verse 35. Money is not a problem.

Verse 36. Poses a question. "Who is acting like a neighbor here?"

Verse 37. Couldn't say "Samaritan".  Go and do likewise.  We are the man in the ditch.  Along comes a man who is rejected by the Jews, has compassion, the means to heal,  has great resources, leaves a deposit, goes away, promises to return.

Who is the good Samaritan?  Jesus - predicting His own ministry.  When we understand the lengths His love has gone, we should be the good Samaritan.

So, for us, "go and do likewise."

Pray for thoese we find hard to love and go and do likewise.

Next: Session 7 "Overcoming the World"

Abide Session 5: Practice Righteousness, Pusue Love, Possess Assurance

 To give us confidence, John will now explore what it means to be a child of God.  "Little children" = Tekna (Greek). We are the natural or genetic children of God.

John 3:1. "Children of God". Publicly recognized as such by God.  Don't lose the wonderment of this. "Behold of what country is the love of God". 

John 3:1b. "Know" - did not have relationship with or understand Him.

John 3:2. We are His children "now" - miraculous. What we will be has not yet appeared (made manifest).  It's not yet become obvious what we will be.

John 3:2b-3. What's the nature of the hope we have in Him? A present hope and a future hope; something better to come. We will be made like Him according to the first creation (Genesis 1:26-27). The image of God. What if we began to live into the pure desires now?

John 3:4. He circles back to the test of righteousness.  This is a devastating definition for sin "lawlessness". Legalists take God's law which is intended to bring glory to God and twist it to bring glory to them.

John 3:5-6. Don't practice sin - slower to repeat.  It's losing its grip.

John 3:7-9. "Practice".  A discipline.  Practice takes time.  "God's seed" = sperma.

John 3:10. "Evident" (manifest). He's moving to the test of love again.

John 3:11. "Love one another" is actually not new.  It first operated in the garden.

John 3:12. The law had been given though.  Whatever Cain knew he was to bring first and best. Love with God was fractured, so love of brother was fractured as well.  Same with Adam and Eve.

John 3:13-15. Echoes "sermon on the mount".  No "sibling" rivalry.

John 3:16-18. Sacrificial love is generous and tangible.

John 3:19-21. When would your heart condemn you? When you committed that sin again.  Confession is always better than concealment.  Nothing is concealed from God.  God is omniscient.

John 3:23-24. Test of truth.  Test of love. Test of righteousness. Three things repeated again.

End. 1) does what my hands are doing show that I love Him? 2) Does what my mind think about Him show that I love Him? 3) Does what my heart setting its desires on show that I love Him?

Questions

1. What repetitive sin do we need to confess again?

2. Who do we merely tolerate?

3. Where does our heart condemn us?

Next: Session 6: Truth & Error: God is Love

Abide: Session 4 The Test of Truth

There are starting to be divisions now in church history.

In John 18 Pilate asks "what is truth?" Many times we go to places on line or books to validate our own existing views of what is true or false - moral relativism.

John 2:18. Antichrists are many.  "The last hour" - the time between the 1st and 2nd coming.  Matthew 24:11 - Jesus' testimony.  Christ means "the anointed one." Anti means against.

Verse 19. They went out. The broke fellowship and went on their own.  Doctrine - perseverance of the saints.  He's concerned with those who are teachers and active in the faith.

Verses 20-21. Now "you" not "they."  Anointed.  Holy Spirit in us.

Verses 22-24a. Remember the foundational truths.

Verses 24b-25. Abiding life.

The list of truth is that you have to arrim that Jesus is God - Father and Son.  Fully God/fully man.  To deny this is to take away the very foundation of the gospel.

Identities of false teaching. Any doctrine that elevates the role of man and diminishes the role of God. Not everything we hear and disagree with is going to be false teaching.  What we are talking about is essential doctrines.

False teaching example. The word of faith to speak things into being and out of being.  God only has that power.  Another one: if I speak my fears aloud, the demons will know what my fears are and they can use it against me based on Job 3:25.  The fear was the loss of his family and health.  We fear God instead of "Pharoah."

Verses 26-27. "Need no teachers to teach you." What? He is arguing against special knowledge.  The anointing abides in us - so we can know the truth of our belief.  He's pressing against what these false teachers are saying.  Matthew 13 - wheat and weeds.  What fruit? Weeds no fruit.  Wheat does.  Believe the Bible.  Good soil of the church can be drained of its nutrients if we are not careful about false teaching.

Verses 26-28. "Abides in you". "Abide in Him".  When it says "we may have confidence", it's saying we may have assurance. See Romans 8:1.  Why does John speak of abiding in Christ so much? Because Jesus did (John 15).  What causes a lack of confidence? Not being prepared or equipped.

The confidence John is giving to the "little children" here is an act of rememberance: He abides in you and you abide in Him.

Core truths of Christian faith: 

1. Bible-inspired word of God

2. Trinity

We are sealed in Him for eternity.  No one can snatch us out of His hand.

We have no reason to shrink in shame at His coming because the penalty for sin is paid in full.

Next: Session 5: Practice righteousness, pursue love, possess assurance

 

Abide: Session 3: The Tests of Righteousness and Love

 Test of Righteousness - "Do I keep His commandments?"

1 John 2:3-6.  John is combating the false idea of gnosticism.  He's using the word "know" over and over - "and by this we have assurance (know) that we have come to have a relationship (know) with Him." Whoever says "I have a relationship (or know Him) with Him, by this we have assurance (know). Matthew 7.

Q: where does God's law (commandments) belong in the believers life today? Matthew 5:17.  Well, we will walk through 3 tests of genuine faith.  Commandments are a test of righteousness, or moral behavior.

You want to obey God when you are child of God.  To love God is to love God's law.  The law of God is an expression of the character of God.

Verse 5. Love of God "perfected" - the law is the means whereby we grow in completeness, in holiness.  There are three ways we should think about the use of the law:

1. James 1:22-24 describes the law as a mirror.  We understand our sin in a new way.  We see ourselves measured against what God commands.

2. Also serves as a restraint.  "This is what's acceptable and this is not."  There should be penalties for us when we transgress.  Exodus 20:1-17. The moral law of the OT actually undergirds the law codes of most major societies.  Laws create boundaries of how we should live with one another.

3. It shows us what's pleasing to the Lord - a path (narrow).  God's law shows us how to live His way in His world.

Verse 6. Walk on the path of Jesus.  A long obedience in the same direction; moving towards righteousness.  Personal sin results in collateral damage. Personal obedience results in collateral benefits.

1 John 2:7-11. Introduces a second test where he uses the commandments as a bridge moving from the test of righteousness to the test of love.  "Do I love my brothers?"

Commandments summed up in Matthew 22:37-40.  

Q: How are we to understand the difference between the old commandment and the new? Well, how is it new?

1. It's new in its extent.  It reaches the sinner and the outsider (Acts 1:8).  Also, to the extent it will go - love of brothers.

2. It's a new commandment in the degree which it is realized - God's law will be written on our hearts.

Verse 10. Love "agape".  A love the mind analyzes and the will chooses.  All obligation on God's side.  But us? We need something in return.  Tests: 1) what are we doing? 2) what is your heart like? your will?  Examine our actions, our desires and our beliefs.

Verse 12-14. He's addressing different levels of spiritual maturity.  Encouragement to persevere.

Verse 15-17. He's setting up another contrast: love of the world vs love of the Father.  Contrast is what which is temporary and that which endures.  Similar to Matthew 6:19.  Remember the gnostics believed the created things around them were evil.  They would like this verse, but then...."the desires of the flesh" etc... He's saying "you have a spiritual problem." It's not the stuff.  It's your heart.

Flesh = sensuality.  Eyes = covetousness.  Pride = arrogance.

Sounds like the things the serpent offered to Eve in Genesis 3:1-6:

1. It will make me happy

2. It won't hurt to look

3. It will make me amazing

1 John 2:17a. Sanctification progressively sets us free from the power of sin - laying our desires on the altar.  

1 John 2:17.  Q: 

1. How can I walk as He walked?

2. What brother/sister needs my purposeful, intentional love?

3. How will I trade sensuality for sensibility? Or covetousness for contentment? Or pride for humility?

Next: Session 4 Practice righteousness, pursue love, possess assurance

Abide: Session 2: A Credible Witness

 

Notes from Session 2.

1 John 1:1-2. "From the beginning" - Jen says it refers to from the beginning of your faith. He begins to appeal then from his physical senses that Jesus came and he witnessed it.

Who is "we"? - the apostles.  They "saw".

1. Seen

2. Testify

3. Record of it (to pass on to the next generation)

Their faith is grounded in fact.  Jesus is a real person. Christianity is a historic faith.

From the beginning, John is taking a swipe at gnostic thinking. They believed Jesus did not come in the flesh but was just a spirit that hovered around a body, utilized them and went back up to heaven.  John will affirm that Jesus was fully God and fully man.

Verse 3. "You" is churches around Ephesus.  What is the point he's saying here? This is not special knowledge here. 

Fellowship. In gnosticism, the focus was on an individual not others oriented.  John is establishing the significance of Christian community.

So that. 1) fellowship among believers and 2) Father and Jesus (vertical/horizontal) not just "me and God" but "we and God".  Look at Acts 2:42 - fellowship.  John reminding of fellowship 60 years later now. People in fellowship have:

1. Shared faith

2. Shared expectation

3. Resources

4. Language

5. Responsibility

Verse 5. Light and darkness.

Verse 6-10. We have three denials John gives us:

1. Truth and lies (v.6).  You cannot have fellowship with God and sin habitually.

2. He addressed "licensed" which is grace to cover you and "legalism" which is saying "I'm really good at being good".V.8 - if we say we have ceased sinning, we are liars. 

3. Moral Relativism (delusional) V.10. Romans 3:23. Romans 3:10.  "What I do isn't so bad".  Living their own personal truth.  

He's calling these errors out.

Verse 9. Confessed - a truth-teller (Luke 18:9-14).  What about the word "just"?  How is the justic of God meeted out? On Christ.  God is "just" to look towards us with mercy and grace.  This is what awaits one who is willing to tell the truth.

"Light" - that Christian virtue would grow in us and put to death the darkness. 

1 John 2. Begins to refer to them as "my little children". He's a father figure in the family of God - the church. 

Verse 1-2. You should desire not to sin; but he wants to make something clear here.

Advocate with the Father. Propitiation - appeasement etc. In what sense is Jesus our advocate? He doesn't plead our innocence.  He acknowleges our guilt, and He presents His vicarious sacrifice for the grounds of our acquittal.  This is why God is faithful and just.  Faithful to the work of Jesus on the cross and just to forgive a sin that's already been established as our guilt and the punishment has already been born - our advocate.  His joy as "papa John" would be made complete.

Note: we have not seen but still believe.  How will we show someone that we know Him?

How can I be an advocate? On my knees in prayer. Ask ourselves "who should I intercede for? Maybe a family member who needs light to shine in their darkness.  Needs truth to shine a light on the lie.

Moral relativism? How to advocate for them? To cry out that mercy would triumph over judgment.

John advocated for an early church.  So we should:

1. Act like we know Him

2. Strive to look like Him

3. Advocate on behalf of others.

That Christian virtue would grow in us and put to death the darkness.

Next: Session 3: The Test of Truth

Abide: Session 1 Introduction

These are my notes from Jen Wilkin's study Abide.  This is her introduction to this study.

Who wrote 1, 2, 3 John?

John the apostle.  The son of Zebedee (Luke 5:10).  He was at the transfiguration, the garden, the crucifixtion and an eye witness. Before this, he was a disciple of John the Baptist and a fisherman by trade.  In Acts 12:1-2 it records his brother James as the first martyr put to death by Herod the Tetarch.  John understands that to follow Jesus is costly.  He wrote 5 books of the NT: John, 123 John, Revelation.  He refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved.  Sons of thunder: Mark 3:17.  Luke 9.  A leader of the early Jerusalem church and later years lived in the area of Ephesus.  He lives a long life.  He is the last of the apostles.

To whom were they written?

1 John was written to several Gentile churches in the Asia province - within 100 mile of Ephesus where John lived.  A circular letter meant to be read out loud.  More like a sermon.  It's said 2nd John was maybe a cover letter.  This book was also written to all believers everywhere (to us as well).

When were they written?

A.D. 85 and A.D. 90. Death of Christ: A.D. 30 to 33. Destruction of temple in Jerusalem A.D. 70. John exiled around A.D. 100. A.D. 30-60 we begin to have the NT writings.  The gospel expands through the Roman empire at this time.  A.D. 68-100 a push toward doctrinal unification and ecclesial unification: what do we believe? What does it mean to be the church?

In what style were they written?

1 John: pastoral letter exhorts believers to right belief and living.

2 John and 3 John: one is addressed to a light/dark; sin/righteousness; repeated words/ideas.  He will flow from one thought to the next - similar to John.  It's not a linear argument like in the Epistles.  1 John 5:13: tells us he writes so that we may know we have eternal life. Written to give assurance to the early church.

What are the central themes of the letters?

1. The purity of the gospel: what are the things we have to agree on in order to be in fellowship.

2. Assurance of faith.

3. The historicity of Christ - that He was an actual person.

4. What does it mean to live an ethical life.

5. The hallmark of love as the primary manner among believers.  He's going to address a false teaching that was beginning to emerge in the first century and comes into its own around 200 A.D. 

A false teaching know as gnosticism.  A sect that was teaching against or twisting the teachings of Christianity in a particular way. A gathering of belief systems all meshed together. A build-your-own spirituality (like today).  John is going to work to clearly define Christian belief.  

Gnosis - knowing and special knowledge.  John will emphasize what we ALL can know to be true about God.  John = community. Gnosticism = individualism (spirit over matter, anti-institutional, against the Lord's supper and baptism, a disregard for OT).

Corporate belief matters (creeds were good to have which speaks of what we believe).  Brotherhood matters and fellowship matters according to John.

Next: Session 2 "A Credible Witness"