Knowing God Through Obedience | In light of love | 1 John 2: 3-6 | Ep.4

Welcome to Preaching from Bryanson Bible Church, located in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa.

It is our prayer that this teaching would bless you, deepen your love for God's word, and encourage you as you follow Jesus.

And if you are not a Christian, we pray that this message would encourage you as you explore the Christian faith.

And by this we know that we have come to know him.

If we keep his commandments.

Or maybe it was that one host, right?

You went to this uh uh uh this bra, and uh the host was uh was like saying, Oh, I know how to brah, and then the meat came out looking like it was a burnt offering from the book of Leviticus.

True story that happened to me once before.

We got invited to a bring and brah, and I take it seriously, a bring and a brah.

And so when it was come to brah, I was going to bra the meat, and the host said, Oh no, no, I've got you.

And so I was like, Are you sure?

No, I'm sure.

And so I was like, All right, Hasla, go ahead and do something.

And then when the meat came out, I was like, um, what is this?

Right, and then the person said, Oh, I have never bribed ribs before.

I was like, Oh my gosh, Rod, you've never bribed ribs before.

And so they there was all child looking like charcoal and thinking to myself, why in the world did I ever allow um my ribs to be bribed by someone who does not know what they're doing over far?

Now, those are some uh funny stories or things that people can claim in in life, and they have little to no serious consequences to uh to them, except the burning the ribs part, that one, you know, is unforgivable.

Him and I don't even talk uh still to this day.

Um, but there are certain things in our lives, right, that are less funny or less light-hearted.

Why?

Because they carry huge consequences, certain claims that when people make, because of the consequences around it, it really is heavy.

And really we can feel it really to the heart.

And so in our country, there have been moments where we have seen people and institutions claim to have oversight, claim to have responsibility, claim to know what they are doing, but then the reality proved to uh prove to be something altogether different than the claim.

And so most recently, it was even on the news that uh we think about the example of the national AR policy draft, right?

If you know ever the story, right?

This draft policy that was supposed to guide the nation on responsible and wise uses of artificial intelligence turned out needed to be withdrawn.

Why?

Because it had some fictitious references in it, likely generated by the very technology that it was supposed to help govern.

But then we also think about some deeply said things, tragic things.

We remember, right, many of us, the life is a the many tragedy, right?

Where over 140 mental health patients died under the uh the claim of responsible planning and care by our health department.

And so what turned out through the tragedy or what the tragedy exposed was that care did not happen there.

In fact, what it exposed was that the claim was far from the reality.

The claim was far from the reality.

And so this morning, here's a point I'm making by way of introduction that claims, friends, are so easy to make.

So easy to make.

But real life often proves whether they are valid or not.

And so you can claim to be a responsible person, you can claim to be wise or you can claim to know what you're doing, you can claim to be trustworthy, but then eventually the everyday challenges and circumstances our lives really expose whether those claims are valid or not.

And so then a claim needs to be validated by the walk.

A claim needs to be validated by the walk.

Now, that principle is not just true of uh everyday things or mundane things in our lives, but it is also true when it comes to the spiritual things we claim.

What we see in our passage in particular, John is addressing his readers to say, uh, to say in particular that this claim of uh uh this claim that all important claim that we can make in our lives needs to be proven by the way that we walk.

Now, what is this all important claim that we can make in our lives?

It is this I know God, I know God, and so John writes to his readers in our text to say that to know God cannot just be simply proven by what we say, but it must be proven by how we live.

Cannot just be proven by what we say, it must be proven by how we live.

Why?

Because sincere obedience, friends, sincere obedience to God is the visible evidence that you truly know God.

Sincere obedience is the visible evidence that you truly know God, and that's where John is taking us this morning.

And so then we'll be confronted with a question in in this particular text.

And John's question isn't simply, can you say that you know God?

His question through the text is Does your life increasingly show that you know God?

Does your life increasingly show that you know God?

And so let's jump into the text 1 John 2, verse 3.

1 John 2:3

Look at what John says as he starts.

And by this we know.

By this we know.

And so John begins with assurance.

He doesn't want Christians to live their lives in constant suspicion.

And so he doesn't say, by this we guess, or by this we hope blindly, or by the uh this we constantly live with spiritual anxiety.

That's not what he says.

He said he says, By this we know.

By this we know.

John wants genuine believers, real Christians, to have tangible assurance.

Tangible assurance.

And so the question becomes tangible assurance over what?

Continuing with verse 3, that we have come to know him.

That we have come to know him.

That is that we have come to know God as he has revealed himself in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, this concept, this idea of knowing and assurance is a massive burden, big burden in John's epistle.

Yeah, and so 40 times he refers to it in some way or another throughout his letter.

And so John has this profound burden for his readers, his audience, to know, have assurance of your genuine relationship with God.

And so, so much so that he gives us three major tests.

Three major tests of genuine fellowship with God.

And yeah, they are.

First one, sound doctrine.

That what do you believe about Jesus?

Second, sincere obedience.

Are you walking in the light of God's word?

And then third, sacrificial love.

Are you loving God's people?

Those are the three tests that John will come back to over and over again throughout his letter.

But Yaryonatex, he deals with sincere obedience, and so look at how John wants to anchor, wants to ground our assurance.

Back to verse 3.

And by this, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.

If we keep his commandment.

John doesn't say, by this we know that we have come to know him, if we made a claim once upon a time before, or if we merely have a testimony from a camp long ago, or if we're speak uh feeling rather spiritual this morning, or if we grew up in a Christian home, or if we associate with other Christians, that's not what he says.

By this, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments.

That's how we know.

And next week we'll see what some of these commandments really are.

But critically to see this morning and understand is this that knowing God, friends, shows itself in a life that comes under the authority of God's word through obedience.

I'll say that again.

Knowing God shows itself in a life that comes under the authority of God's word through obedience.

That's how we would know that we know God.

And so the reason why John addresses this is because in his particular context, the audience that he's writing to, there were some who were claiming to say, Oh, we know God, or we have now got this greater spiritual knowledge and understand deeper spiritual truths, and yet their lives were empty of submission towards God.

And so John is writing this epistle to say that cannot be.

Why?

Because, and here's the first point knowing God is not proven by what we claim, but by how we walk.

Knowing God is not proven by what we claim, but by how we walk.

To know God, friends, is not to simply or merely just know certain things about God.

To know God means that you have been brought into fellowship with who God truly is, and if you've been brought into fellowship with who God truly is, then your life cannot remain untouched by that God, cannot be remained untouched by that God.

And so, if God is God, friends, then he is not someone we merely ought to admire.

If God is God, he's someone we must obey out of love, he's someone we must obey out of love.

That's what John goes on to say, verse 4 whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

John is direct with us in this, he leaves no room for a version of Christianity that can knowingly disobey God or refuse to listen to what God says while still claiming, oh, I know God, leaves no room for that.

Friends, that kind of Christianity is not merely just uh weak, it is false, according to John.

Instead, verse 5 whoever keeps his word in him truly, the love of God is perfected, meaning that the love of God reaches its ultimate purpose and maturity in that person.

Now, what does John mean by that?

Here's what he means, friends that there is a link, a link between knowledge, obedience, and love of God.

There's a link between knowledge, obedience, and love of God.

Now, to understand that link, think about it in this way.

Imagine a husband who says to his wife, I love you deeply, but then proceeds to ignore the things she says.

To be dismissive of what on her heart, to continuously disregard her concerns, to live his life as if her words carry no weight in his life.

We would all eventually begin to question his love for her, right?

Now, why would we do that?

Because you and I instinctively know that love does not merely speak, but love acts, right?

Love acts, taking seriously the will and the words of the other person, and so then if said husband were to turn around and start to pay attention to what she says, start to care about what's on her heart, so to really uh really uh look to uh order his life around some of the things she's concerned about.

You and I do not turn around and say, Well, he must be under some legalistic pressure to do so.

Do we?

No, instead we would say that is love.

That is love, and so then his by his actions towards what she considers uh to be uh important or what she considers to matter most become the evidence, visible evidence of his life for her.

And so, in a similar way, John is making that connection for us, that link for us between our knowledge, our obedience, and our love for God.

He is saying to us, trying to explain to us, to claim to know and to love God.

If you claim to know and love God, then you cannot become someone who simply looks at God's word and it carries no weight over your life.

You will not treat the will of God as if it's optional.

You will not treat the word of God, his commands as merely suggestions.

A person who truly knows and loves God starts or begins to love the things that God loves, begins to care about the things that God cares about and his word.

That's what true love is.

And so, therefore, then what would happen?

You start to begin to see in that person that their love for God begins to transform their life, it begins to reshape their desires, it begins to reorder their priorities, it begins to redirect their life so that they will look more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, as we'll see in a moment.

And so then what we're seeing, we're seeing, friends, that obedience is not merely following God's rules.

Obedience is the love of God bearing its fruit in your life to know, to have evidence that the love of God is truly transforming you, it is seen through your sincere obedience to the word of God, and so then you and I have got to ask ourselves a probing question over the text, and it is this is my claim to know and love God being confirmed by the way in which I lead my life?

It's my claim to know that I know and I love God being confirmed by the way in which I lead my life.

Friends, if you want a real and honest answer to that question, then don't ask yourself that question.

Ask your spouse if you have one.

Ask your children if you have some.

Ask your parents, ask your friends, ask the people who work alongside you.

Ask the people who are closest to you to see the real you are because those you are closest to us often we can see if there is really a greater alignment between what you claim that you know about God and how you live your life.

And as we ask ourselves that question this morning, let us be mindful of this.

That sincere obedience must not be confused with earning salvation or achieving perfection.

Must not be confused with earning salvation or achieving perfection.

And so let's guard against avoid against two traps.

And so John is not saying to us, friends, obey enough so that God would accept and save you.

That's not what he's saying to us.

Now, how can we be so confident that that's not what he's saying?

Because if that's what he was saying, then he would undermine and contradict the very gospel that he has been proclaiming to us.

And so we saw last week, Mike, take us through the first two verses of this particular chapter where John lays out for us the gospel.

And so here's what he says, end of verse one.

We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, he is the propitiation for our sins.

And so, what is John telling us?

He's telling us this, friends, that the gospel is not you and I trying to climb our way out of our sin, up to God through our own effort and our own obedience.

That's not the gospel.

Instead, the gospel is God coming down to us through Jesus Christ, and He pays the full penalty of our sin before God and advocates for our righteousness on the basis of his sacrifice.

And so we got to get that clear in our minds that your sincere obedience, friend, is not the basis for your salvation, it is not the reason why God the Father embraces you as a child.

Jesus Christ alone is.

That's the reason.

One embraces you as his child.

And so then what we're seeing, we're seeing that your sincere obedience is not the price you pay so that you can be loved by God.

Your sincere obedience is the path you walk because you have been loved by God.

And so let's avoid that first trap of trying to earn our salvation.

It's your obedience.

Then trap two is thinking that sincere obedience requires perfection.

And so this trap thinks that John is saying that true Christians never sin.

They always obey and never disobey.

But John has already dealt with that in his letter.

For remember, chapter one, verse eight, he writes and he says, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

And the truth is not in us.

And hence our ongoing need for confession.

Chapter 1, verse 9.

If we confess our sins, He God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And so then what we're seeing, we're seeing that the Christian life, friends, is not a life without sin or complete obedience.

The Christian life is a life where we constantly confess our sin to the God who Is light.

That's what the Christian life is.

And so you want to know the difference between a true believer and a false claimant.

The difference between them the two is not that one sins and the other does not.

The difference between the two is what they do with their sin.

You see, the false claimant excuses it, denies it, diminishes it, minimizes it, hides it, excuses it, and makes light of it.

But the true believer confesses it, grieves it, brings it before the Lord Jesus Christ, receives his cleansing, and continually walks in the light of God.

That's the difference between the two.

And so then John is not appealing to us here in this text, asking us, hey, have you earned perfection yet?

Anyone out there?

Are you perfect yet?

That's not what he is writing to ask.

Instead, he has what he's writing to say to us.

He's saying, friend, what do you do when the word of God confronts your life?

What do you do?

Do you submit to it or do you resist it?

In other words, John is asking us, are you becoming quicker at obeying the word of God?

Or are you just simply ignoring it?

That's the question that he lays before us.

And so then, guess what we see?

We're seeing that sincere obedience is not sinless perfection.

Sincere obedience is the genuine and repentant pattern of a life that increasingly yields to God's ways.

That's what sincere obedience is.

A genuine and repentant pattern of a life that increasingly yields to God's ways.

And so then as we look to avoid these two traps, there's still further caution that we must take as we do so.

Because maybe some of us are sitting here and you hear all this, and you're thinking to yourself and saying, wait a minute, okay, if obedience does not save me, and if perfection is not required, then is obedience all that necessary after all, is obedience really necessary after all.

And so, friends, I'll say to you, that would be the wrong conclusion to arrive at.

You see, some just because obedience does not save you does not mean that obedience does not matter.

And just because obedience is not perfect does not mean that it gets to be absent in our lives.

Why?

Because John's exhortation still carries weight.

Look at verses four and five again.

Whoever says, I know him, but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But whoever keeps his word, in him truly, the love of God is perfected.

And so then, friends, seeing that if we are going to claim that we know God, then our lives must increasingly show it.

Not just through what we say, but through how we live.

And so then, you and now, let us not be people who claim to know the God of truth, but then are content to walk in dishonesty before others.

Let us not claim to know the God of holiness, but then secretly nurture compromises in our private lives and in the things that we keep hidden because they are out of sight of other people.

Let us not claim to know the God of love, but then are harsh at home, impatient with our children, cold towards our spouse, unforgiving towards a brother or a sister, dismissive of people that we deem to be too much of an inconvenience.

Realize some claim to know the God of dignity, and yet we speak about other people with so much contempt, gossip, under the disguise of concern, or we start to treat people who are created in the image of God as if they are somewhere beneath us.

Let us not claim to know the God of generosity and yet lead our lives with crossed hands, with self-protective hearts, with lifestyles that conform to the modern comforts of this world rather than through uh conform to kingdom sacrifice.

Let us not claim to know the God who reconciles people in Jesus Christ, and yet we allow tribalism, racism, sexism, classism, or anti-immigrant sentiments to tell us to shape the way we relate to other people.

Brother and sister in Christ, let us, let us not separate our claim from our walk.

Not simply because truly knowing God must reveal, show itself in how we walk, but also because we are called, friends, to reflect the Lord Jesus Christ in our walk.

And that's where John texts us next, as a look at the end of verse 5 and into verse 6.

Here's what he says, by this we may know that we are in him.

Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

And so here John moves his language from knowing God into abiding in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because when he says, whoever says he abides in him, he is bringing Jesus Christ into full view now.

Well, how do we know that?

Because he goes on to say, therefore, we ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

And so then this is the climax of the text.

This is where John is now painting for us, friends, the portrait, the picture of what it looks like to walk in sincere obedience.

And it's this that sincere obedience looks like walking as Jesus walked.

It looks like walking as Jesus walked.

Or us becoming uh becoming these rule-abiding uh uh uh good Christians, or becoming more morally respectable, or as becoming decent people, or regular churchgoers.

It is walking like Jesus walked.

That's what we're being called to.

And so we're seeing that Jesus Christ becomes the pattern, the pattern of the Christian walk.

And as we abide in the Lord Jesus Christ, his walk starts to become our walk.

We start to walk like Jesus walked.

And so this morning you may be sitting there and wondering to yourself, okay, how did Jesus Christ walk?

Well, yes, how he walked in obedience to the Father, in holiness before the Father, in truth before the world, in compassion for the broken, in humility before his enemies, in sacrificial love for his people.

And so, what are we seeing?

We're seeing that the Lord Jesus Christ didn't simply claim to know God, his life displayed genuine fellowship for God through obedient, sacrificial love.

He displayed it, and once we begin to see that, then we'll be coming beginning to become prepared for where John goes next, because John will then show us next week that if we truly walk as Jesus walked, our lives will be characterized by obedient, sacrificial love towards one another.

And so if you're sitting here this morning, you want to, in your outer heart, you want to truly be someone who doesn't simply claim to know God, but you want your life to truly show it.

Then he has the call.

Abide in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Abide in Jesus Christ.

Because as you abide in Jesus Christ, then his walk becomes your walk.

And so if you're a true believer here this morning, someone who would say, Hey, I've surrendered my life to the Lord Jesus, I know that to be true, then to abide in the Lord Jesus Christ means allow the word of God, keep allowing the word of God to rule your life.

Keep allowing his love to shape you.

And if you're here this morning and you say, sure, I know that I haven't yet trusted in the Lord.

I don't know what I really, truly think about believing in God, then for you this morning, the call is to come to Jesus.

Come to Jesus, don't settle for some religious claim from a distance.

Come to Jesus.

The one who truly obeyed the Father perfectly, who lived, truly lived and loved sacrificially, who died for sinners, is inviting you into genuine fellowship with God if you will repent of your sins and trust Him as your Lord and Savior.

That's what it will mean for you to abide in Jesus this morning.

And so as I close, if we claim to know God, if we claim to know God, our lives must show it.

Not simply through the things we say, but by how we live.

Let me pray, Father.

We come this morning.

This morning in this room, and even for those of us who may be resisting your call over their lives.

How can we yeah that there is a God who's calling us into genuine fellowship with them and yet not truly want to desire that for ourselves?

And so, yes, oh Lord, we want to be a people, you would say, Yes, we know and we love you, we know and we love you, and we don't want those to do that to just remain as claims we make, but it be displayed in how we walk, it be shown in how we walk our in our daily lives.

If that is our desire, we know, oh Lord, that we cannot do it by our own power, by our own efforts, by our own desires.

We need you, we need you, oh God, to help us, not just merely be hearers of your word, but doers of it.

And so we come here this morning and say, Go Lord, help us, help us, and no sooner than we cry out, help us.

We also know that your word says that those who will put that faith and hope in you, you will never allow to be put to shame.

Why?

Because Jesus Christ has borne that shame, born our guilt, born our inabilities to truly live for you, and so we come, we come under the sheltering of that advocate, that propitiation before you, and we say we receive your righteousness, we receive your power to be able to live our lives in a manner that is worthy of the gospel in Christ Jesus.

We thank you for the gift of grace that Jesus Christ is, that through him and him alone, we can live lives that bring you great glory.

And so this morning, oh Lord, we ask, anchor us in the fullness of the truth and the power of Jesus Christ.

I pray for those of us, self-included, that I know that after a word like this, I can immediately see the one or two things in my life that I got I feel, oh Lord, that if it weren't for that, I would be confident on my standing before you.

I pray that in the truth of the gospel, you would help us see Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, as our confidence, as our anchor.

And therefore, because he is our redeemer, because there is no more for you to ever give to us that could ever assure us we choose to then take of Christ and walk in a manner worthy of your calling.

Help us be a church, a church where it is clear that there are people that are in deep fellowship with God in this church because it is seen in the ways in which they lead their lives, not just in this church, but in the places where you will call us to be your salt and light.

We thank you and we praise you in the name of Jesus Christ and all God's people say.

Amen.

Friends, would you stand and we respond in song?

Thanks for listening to this sermon from BBC.

If you have questions about what you've heard or would like to find out more about the Christian faith, we'd love to hear from you.

You can visit our website or reach out using the contact details below.

God bless you.