1 John Study
Lesson # 5
Proof That One Really Knows God
# 1
Introduction
In our day & age many claim to know God, but in reality they have no clue what God is really like. They choose to make God in their image & then act like what they believe is the truth about God. John presents seven tests about knowing God in this second chapter of 1 John. Just as James did in his book John states that if one really has a relationship with God it will be evident in his life. It will not just be words, it will be seen in his lifestyle.
1. Test # 1 – Do we keep His commandments?
a. The only way that man can ever really know God is that God somehow reveals
Himself to us.
1) Man lives in the physical realm & God in the spiritual realm. Man
cannot understand God with His physical senses alone, he needed
help. This is what God did in sending Jesus.
2) Scriptures
Jn.1:18 – no one ever seen God – Jesus manifests Him
Jn.12:45 – Seen Me = seen Him that sent Me
Jn.14:7 – Know Me = know My Father
Col.2:9 – In Him dwells the fullness of God
Heb.1:3 – the exact image
3) Thus to know God means that we must know Jesus.
b. In addition to this, John says that we must keep God’s commands. What
commands?
1) 1 Jn.3:23 – believe in name of Jesus & love one another
2) Jn.13:34,35 – new command = love one another as I love you
3) Rom.13:8-10 – love does no wrong to neighbor
c. No matter what a person may say, he does not know God if he has never given
his life to Jesus Christ. And he does not know God if he criticizes,
grumbles, and backbites his brother and commits adultery, kills, steals,
lies, covets, or does anything else against his brother. If a person really
knows God, then he wants to please God.
d. Some people seek to know God, but they do it in the wrong way.
1) Some speculate about God. This is the route most people take in trying
to know God. They imagine what God is like and hold that image in
their mind and try to live by what they imagine. They have their own
teachings and their own images of what God is like, and they govern
their lives by that image.
2) Some try to seek and know God by mystical or emotional experiences.
They seek to know the spiritual world and its focus through spiritists,
astrology, séances, magic, and a host of other man-made mystical
experiences.
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2. He that says, “I know Him” & not keep His commands
is a liar
a. His knowledge of God—what he thinks God is like—is false. His image of God
and the ideas within his mind of God are not true. They are false,
counterfeit, not genuine. The person does not know God at all.
b. Mt.7:21-23 – must do will of Father
c. Mk.7:6-8 – focus on mans rules – vain worship
3. Whoever keeps His word
a. The only way to know anyone is - to get near them, & to study them, learn all
about them—all about their will, desires, and wants, their nature and
thoughts and behavior.
b. The same is true with God. The only way to know God is to get near Him and
study Him, learning all we can about His will, desires, and wants; all about
His nature and thoughts and behavior.
c. Note
a most wonderful result: the person who keeps God’s Word has the love
of God perfected in his life.
1) What does this mean? When we draw near God and begin to keep His
Word, we begin to establish a relationship with God. It is just like
a boy who meets a girl and begins to draw near her. He begins to
know her and to develop affection for her, and the more he
associates with her, the more he loves her.
2) So it is with God. The more we draw near Him and keep His Word and
please Him, the more we learn about Him and love Him.
3) The word “keep” (terei) is continuous action. It means to continue on
and not to stop. It means day-by-day obedience. If we keep God’s
Word day by day, then we learn more and more about God; we
learn to love Him more and more. His love becomes perfected,
completed, and fulfilled in us.
4) Scriptures
Mt.12:50 – does my will is my brother
Jn.14:23 – does my will – come make abode with him
Jn.15:10 – keep command – abide in His love
Jn.15:14 – my friends if do what I say
4. Say abide in Him ought walk as He walked
a. The word “walk” (peripatein) is continuous action. It means to keep on
walking; to continuously walk.
b. In fact, the word ought means debt, constraint, obligation. The person who
professes Jesus Christ, who claims that he knows God, is obligated to walk
as Jesus Christ walked. He is in debt to walk as Christ walked.
c. Jesus always sought to please His Father in everything. Whatever He did was in
line with His Father’s will.
d. Scriptures
Mt.16:24 – deny self & follow me
Phil.2:5-7 – have this mind in you which was in Christ
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1. Test # 2 – Love one’s brother
a. Do we love our neighbors?
1) If we criticize, grumble, gripe, backbite, ignore, neglect, curse, abuse,
slander, hate, or mistreat our neighbors in any way, then we do not
know God.
2) No matter what we may claim nor how loudly we claim it, we do not
know God if we do not love our neighbors.
3) God is love; therefore any person who truly knows God is bound to
love. Loving others is a strong test of our knowledge of God. We
can tell whether or not we know God by testing our love for others.
b. Note three significant facts.
1) This is not a new commandment. One of the very first things that God
ever said to man was this: man must love his neighbor (Lev.19:18).
2) The commandment is a new commandment. What is so new about
love? Jesus Christ!
a) Jesus Christ gave love a new meaning. He loved all people –
good, bad, righteous & unrighteous.
b) This was a totally new concept of love. Man has always felt free
to mistreat others, especially those who had mistreated him.
c) But Jesus Christ
has shown that we cannot mistreat people no
matter what they have done, that we must love everyone no
matter who they are. Mt.5:43-45
3) Love is now made known by the true light that shines and erases the
darkness (1 John 2:8).
a) The darkness refers to man’s old idea of love - that he could
react against anyone who mistreated him.
b) But Jesus Christ, who is the light of the world, has now shone
forth the truth.
2. If we hate our brother we walk in darkness
a. We say, “Oh, I don’t hate my brother. I just don’t like him. I don’t know how to
get along with him.” Or, “He just turns me off: his appearance, his
behavior.” Or, “He did me wrong; he mistreated me.” Whatever the
reason, it is not love.
b. No man walks in the light of God, no man knows God, unless he loves his
neighbor—even the neighbors who stand against him.
c. Two
wonderful things are said about the person who loves his brother.
1) He is a man who abides in the light, that is, in Christ. This man
lives and walks in Jesus Christ. He walks in love just as Jesus
Christ walked in love.
2) There is no occasion of stumbling in him. There is nothing in him to
make him stumble, nothing to trip him up in life, nothing to make
him fall and hurt himself or destroy his life.
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d. Several things are said about those who hate their brothers
1) He is in darkness and walks in darkness. He is not in the light, not in
Christ. Therefore, he does not know God.
2) He has no direction and is blind. He does not look beyond this life and
he is blind to it. He sees little if any meaning to life other than
getting all he can of its comfort, pleasures, and possessions.
3) Thought How often a person has opposed a good project simply
because he was upset with the leader. The great good of the project
is often clearly visible, but hatred blinds the mind and more
tragically the heart—so much so that a person makes a fool out of
himself without even knowing it. But more tragically, he often
causes damage and division among people, and his soul is doomed
to be in darkness forever—forever separated from the light of God
and of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Test # 3 – Spiritual growth
a. Notice
that three groups of people are addressed by John—little children,
fathers, and young men. Notice also that each one is addressed twice.
1) In 1 John 2:12-13 John uses the present tense and says “I am writing to
you.”
2) In 1 John 2:14 he uses the past tense and says, “I have written to you.”
3) Two questions immediately arise: Who are these people and why does
John change tenses?
b. First, who are the people John is addressing? Is he addressing the various age
groups in the church: the children, the aged fathers, and the young men?
Or is he talking about stages of spiritual growth?
1) Now note a significant fact: there are within the church other adults
other than fathers and young men. There are full grown men who
are aged and there are women.
2) It is doubtful that John would be referring to the various age groups
within the church and addressing only the fathers and young men
among the adults.
3) This points rather strongly to John’s
classification being the stages
of spiritual growth.
c. If you really know Christ, then you have grown in Christ; you have developed
and matured stage by stage. If you have not grown in Christ, you do not
know God. If a person is truly born again in Christ, then he begins to live
and walk in Christ. If he is truly converted over to Christ, then he is a
follower of Christ; he focuses upon Christ and grows in Christ.
5 d. The following chart will help us to grasp what John is doing.
|
I
AM WRITING this |
Reasons for writing |
|
· To the little children among you, that is, the newborn Christians |
· Because your sins are forgiven |
|
· To spiritual fathers among you, that is, the spiritually mature with a deep and rich knowledge of God |
· Because you have known God and have been faithful from the beginning |
|
· To the young men among you, that is, the mature believers |
· Because you have overcome the wicked one |
|
|
|
|
I HAVE WRITTEN the first part of the letter... |
Reasons for writing |
|
· To little children among you, that is, the newborn Christians |
· Because you have known the Father |
|
· To spiritual fathers among you, that is, the spiritually mature with a deep and rich knowledge of God |
· Because you have known God and have been faithful from the beginning |
|
· To the young men among you, that is, the mature believers |
· Because you are strong, have the Word of God abiding in you, and have overcome the wicked one |
e. No matter who the believer is, how weak or strong he is, this message applies to
him. This is a message for the whole church.
1) There are little children, people who have just received Jesus Christ and
begun to follow Him. If you are a newborn Christian, remember
this: your sins are forgiven.
2) But note why: “for his name’s
sake.” God forgives our sins for Christ’s
sake. He cleanses us for the sake of Christ far more than He does
for us. Because of what Christ has done, for His sake, God has
forgiven our sins.
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3) There are fathers, spiritual fathers, believers who are spiritually mature
with a deep and rich knowledge of God. Never forget where you
have come from, never forget how you grew in Christ. Jn.8:31,32
4) There are young men, mature believers in the church. These must
remember how far they have come. They have come a long way:
they have fought a long battle and they have now overcome the
wicked one. The wicked one used to attack them right and left, at
every turn. He attacked them with every temptation imaginable,
but especially with the sins that were so common before their
conversion.
5) Satan does not want to lose us or our loyalty to sin; he wants to cause
God as much pain as possible. Therefore right after we accept
Christ, he attacks us with far greater force than ever before.
(a) But the mature believer overcomes. However, he must
remember how he overcame, for Satan stays after the
believer as long as he is on earth.
(b) The attacks perhaps are not as often nor as fierce as when the
believer was younger, but the believer must stay strong or
else he will be caught off-guard and fall into sin.
(c) The mature believer must always remember how he overcame
the wicked one and continue to combat him in the Word.
f. How do believers overcome Satan?
1) By drawing near God and asking for wisdom. James 1:5
2) By using God’s Word, quoting it over and over in their minds, to
conquer the temptation. Lk.4:8
3) By learning and knowing that God allows temptation to teach
endurance. James 1:2-4
4) By not yielding their bodily members to sin. Rom.6:11-13
5) By clothing themselves with the armor of God. Eph.6:13
6) By being on guard and watching for the tempter’s temptations. 1 Pet.5:8
7) By
submitting to God and resisting the devil. James 4:7
8) By not
giving in to the enticement of sinners. Prov.1:10
9) By not entering into the path of the wicked. Prov.4:14
2. Why John changes tenses – so we will always remember our relationship to God a. What John has written has been written to stir up their relationship to the
Father. Believers, no matter their stage of spiritual growth, must never
forget who it is they know: God the Father.
b. Little children, young believers, must remember that they have known the
Father & have just been adopted into the family of God. God Himself, the
Supreme Force of the universe, is not some abstract energy way off in
outer space. God is a Person and He desires to relate to man. He wants to
become a Father to people. He wants to adopt people as His children, to
have people believe in Him and trust Him to look after them.
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c. Fathers, the believers who have a deep and rich knowledge of God, must
always remember that they have known God who is from the beginning.
They must remember everything that has been said to them & in addition,
they must never be lifted up with pride—no matter how long they have
walked with God. No matter how deep and rich the believer’s knowledge
of God is, there is so much more to know. God is eternal and He has an
eternity of experience for us to learn about. Therefore, we must never be
lifted up with pride as though we know God and have arrived.
d. Young men, the mature believers, must remember three things.
1) Mature believers must remember that they are strong. They must know
their strength and be assured and have confidence in the strength
they have gained.
a) But mature believers must remember where their strength comes
from and how they became spiritually strong: all through
Jesus Christ.
b) Note: believers must never trust the power of the flesh, of
mental determination. The flesh and the mind fail. Neither
can be consistently strong in controlling the flesh. Both
mind and body will eventually weaken and fail in spiritual
warfare. Jn.15:5; 2 Cor.3:5; 2 Cor.12:7-10
2) Mature believers must remember that the Word of God abides in them.
This is the key to spiritual growth and to pleasing and securing the
approval of God.
a) No matter what a person may think or say, there is no spiritual
growth apart from God’s Word.
b) No person pleases or secures God’s approval without studying
and living in God’s Word.
c) Mature believers must never forget this, and they must continue
to give their lives to studying and living in the Word of
God. Acts 20:32; 2 Tim.2:15; 2 Tim.3:16; 1 Pet.2:1,2
3) Mature believers must remember that they have overcome the wicked
one.