Last week, instead of continuing with our study of of I john, I listed a few of my favorite passages of Scripture and why these specific passages were meaningful to me.
One of the things I like to do in my spare time is listen to sermons online from other parts of the world. I happened to come across a message about the epistles of John from a Baptist church in England. I found this sermon rather shocking. The minister said that she found all of the epistles of John hard to understand, and she didn't like preaching about them. She said that they didn't make a lot of sense to her. To me, I John is a book filled with tremendous spiritual truth. I just hope that I am doing an adequate job of relating the message of I John in my writing.
For the record, this isn't the worst thing I've heard about the Bible from a minister. One minister I was reading actually said that he would never preach a message from the book of Hebrews. He said that he couldn't see any relevance in the book for today, and he didn't even understand why Hebrews was included in the Bible.
When we were last in I John, we focused on the first portion of chapter 2 which speaks about the fact that Jesus is our advocate with the Father, and how Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.
We learned that Jesus satisfied both the love of God and the justice of God when Jesus bore our sins in His body on the cross. The judgment for sins that we should have received was placed on Jesus. Those who accept Jesus as Lord and are in Christ are no longer under judgment. Jesus has paid the debt and we are free.
Today, we continue on with verse 3 and 4 which state, "And hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that sayeth, I know him, and keepeth not his ommandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him."
These verses are similar to John's views about sin. However, John is now placing the emphasis on the positive instead of the negative. Instead of not sinning being a distinguishing mark of one who has a true relationship with Jesus, now, John is saying that a distinguishing characteristic of a true follower of Jesus is obeying the commandments of Jesus.
These words of John are similar to the words of James and of Jesus Himself. James talks about faith without works being dead in James 2:14-26. You can say that you have faith , but if there are no works as a result of that faith, then it is a dead faith. In other words, a person who has faith without works has a profession of faith and not a possession of faith.
Jesus also spoke about this theme during His Upper Room Discourse. Jesus states in John 15:14, "You are my friends, if you do what I command you."
In the United States where I live, the vast majority of people identify in some way with the Christian religion. There is really no persecution for saying that you are a believer.
However, while so many claim to be Christians, there are actually very few who actually practice the Christian faith. For instance, In the U.S., only about 25 to 30 percent of the people who claim Christianity actually attend church. A lot of people claim the faith, it just doesn't seem that important to them.
This same thing holds true in Europe. Many claim to be Christians, but even fewer attend church than in the United States. (I think that the exception to this is Poland.)
In my country, there is also an easy believeism preached that goes something like this. Someone responds to an invitation to accept Christ. Those who respond say a prayer, and then they are said to be saved. The teaching then goes that even if you don't make Jesus the Lord of you life, if you said that prayer, you are saved and eternally secure.
I believe that the clear teaching of Jesus, James and John is in absolute opposition to this view. A Christian is someone who make Jesus Christ the Lord of his life. Part of having Jesus as Lord means doing those things that He commanded His followers to do.
Being a Christian means following Christ. However, much of modern, evangelical Christianity has reduced salvation to escaping Hell and getting into Heaven. This is not taught in Scripture. We come to Jesus to have a relationship with Him and grow in Him. We are to become more like Jesus everyday. When we die, if we are in Christ, Heaven will be our home. However, this whole emphasis to accept Jesus to get to Heaven is misplaced. Salvation is this, but it is so much more than this.
Someone who really loves Jesus, and has been truly and deeply touched by Jesus, will have a strong desire to do those things that please the Lord. When Jesus commanded to spread His teachings, the follower of Christ responds in obedience.
The person who is true follower of Jesus strives with all of his might to follow the teachings of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount.
If anyone says that a person can be a Christian and not follow the commandments of Jesus, that person is teaching false doctrine. This is clearly stated by John in this passage.
Verses five and six in chapter two reiterate John's statement in the previous verses. We can test whether or not we are in the faith by testing if we have a desire to follow the commandments of Jesus and imitate His life and example.
Jesus is our perfect example. We must strive to always do those things our Savior did. Jesus sought to help people. He sought to meet the needs of hurting people. With Jesus as our example, this too should be our goal.
Before I close, I want to say that I realize that some who read this blog live in areas where claiming to be a Christian is a matter of life and death. I pray for all of you who live faithfully for Jesus in the midst of persecution. I pray that God will bless you and that you will know the peace of Christ in the depths of your heart.
May God bless you all. Amen.
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