The Book of 1 John: Stay the Love Course Together
LESSON Three: The world will hate you
To watch this on video: https://youtu.be/NDtOu_QndSI
INTRODUCTION
We are titling this series, “Stay the Love Course Together” because there are two major themes I see coming out of this Bible sermon book. One is the confrontation John has with the false teachings, and I guess by implication the false teachers, who are rejecting some authorized aspects of the question, “Who is Yeshua?” The other major theme I see in anything John writes is the love of God. The true and real God is known as love, his desire for us as his followers is love from a pure heart and a sincere faith. The course laid out for us by the Messiah is to love one another. Anything less than that, …is less than that.
Today we see another hodge-podge of data designed to continue the theme of God is Light and we are his children, children of light, and thus we should act like it. Remember, when some of you hear that, you are thinking, oh, I need to get my act together. I need to be more in the light side of life than the dark side. I get that. And I’m all in favour of your being on the correct side of things.
What John would tell you is that you ARE on the light side already, and actually you are LIGHT. Paul and John were on the same wavelength when Paul said something similar. In Ephesians chapter 5 we read,
“You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light, for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them…all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light.” (5.7-13)
Paul doesn’t say you were IN the darkness; he says you were darkness. He doesn’t say you are now in the light; he says you are the Light. That’s exactly what Yeshua taught in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5. “You are the light of the world…”(verse 14). Yes, he claimed that title for himself to be sure (John 8.12), and yet he also notified the believers that we had a light vs darkness ministry. We are called to be the light. Let’s talk about what that looks like.
We saw in chapter one of 1 John that God is light. OK. What does light actually do or how does it behave? What benefits are there to light anyway?
1) Light wins in the battle with darkness. They don’t actually go hand in hand. When light enters a room, darkness retreats. There is no relationship between the two. Paul mockingly and rhetorically asked the Corinthians, what fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Cor. 6.14) John tells us that our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. (1 Jn. 1). If you are having a battle with darkness, with sins of commission like with alcohol or drugs, with lusting and acting out with prostitutes, or in other illicit sexual activity, if your sins of commission involve lying or stealing, all of these need a healer to attend. That’s Yeshua. He wants to surround you with light and make you light instead of darkness. Will you surrender yourself to the Lord of Light so that you will become light in the Lord?
What about sins of omission? Not loving the guy you walk by every week on the train platform—the guy who smells bad and who needs special clothing to get a good job. What about your not praying when you should or not fasting as often as you think you are being called to do. Sins of not tithing or not being generous to the congregation or your favourite Jewish mission. What about leading others in prayer or in Bible study? Should you not be leading others by now?
Whether sins of commission where we do things God has said no to, or sins of omission, where we don’t perform what God has asked, both alike need the healer, the Messiah to come along and save us. We need Light to expose the darkness.
2) Light brings comfort. Late at night, the body wakes up and you cannot sleep. You lie in the dark. You consider rising. Then you do, and suddenly you slip as you step on the shoes you wore yesterday and didn’t tuck into their proper place. The things you would see in the light, you don’t see, because you are in darkness. And you are discomforted by your inability to see. When you turn on the light, you bring comfort to yourself. Think of information coming to you when you are disoriented. You don’t know which way to go, or which turn to take, and suddenly, you see the road ahead and the map helps you to know that you should be turning right in 200 metres, and you are glad, you are comforted, the light has advised you and you are better for it.
3) Light warms us. You will know we just passed the equinox, that time in September and again in March, when the day and the night have equal lengths. Here in Australia, the solstice we don’t like is the winter solstice, towards the end of June, when we have the least amount of sunshine each day. Of course you may like the winter solstice if you are a Thredbo person and downhill skiing is your sport of choice. It’s cold. It’s winter. It’s dark, and the favorite place in our house for my wife is the fireplace. Right next to it is the gas heater, and either or both working together make her life that much better. She’s warmed by the sight of the fire, no matter how many layers she has to wear. I too find great comfort in the warmth of the hearth.
When all else seems ice cold and frozen away from the love of God, the light of his glory, of his gospel of forgiveness and grace, brings a warmth like a hot chocholate in a steaming mug in the midst of a 3 degree evening, and my hands, my whole body warm up. From the inside. God’s light gives warmth to our whole being.
We saw in chapters one and two references to God as Father. In our modern world, we are used to that nomenclature. Not only among Christians, but among Jews and Muslims and even naturalists in a way. God’s relationship with us as Father however, is very new in John’s day. Jews would never title him “Father” but rather the Almighty, the Glorious One, and then list his attributes. But ‘father?’ no way! When Yeshua taught that he was the Son of God and called God his “Father” the hearers were shocked.
Now John brings us this Father of Lights (James 1) and brings us into the understanding that we are his children. That’s huge. I don’t know what religion you had when you were a child, but mine was significantly rich in symbolism and Torah and dressing up on the Holidays and on Shabbos and full of wonder about a God who is far, far away. No distant galaxy could contain him, but he could withdraw himself beyond any of those. His rules were severe; his eyes ever dashing to and fro to catch me out in my sin.
John says, nope, that’s not God. He calls us to marvel. Look at verse 1.
“See” or “Consider”. This is a plural command. Y’all, note this. Horao. It’s used of things actually visible. Like ‘see with what large letters I write to you.” (Gal. 6.11). And then the word “bestowed” or other versions say “lavished”. This word is another rarely used word in the NT, and ‘introduces a sense of wonder” (Smalley) Then one more in verse 1, the word “how great” which is found in Matthew and Peter meaning “what a great kind” of healer or teacher (Matt. 8.27, 2 Peter 3.11) , but here it’s more like Mark used in Yeshua’s words about the massive stones at the Temple site (“How great!”- Mark 13.1)
I’m saying, that this opening line is a call to wonder, to be amazed, to shout, “Glory!” because God has been revealed to us as Father and we are therefore his sons and daughters. We are family. Thanks, Sly, we are family. And we are welcomed and not cast aside. We are insiders, and never again to be wondering if we are worthy. The Prodigal Father has welcomed us and forgiven us, and we are HIS!
I know some of you don’t want to hear this, but there is a great divide between believers and non-believers. The world will hate us, Yeshua said, because it didn’t know him. John repeats that thought in chapter three. He already said it in chapter 2 in “the love of the Father is not in him.” (2.15) Here he reiterates “the world does not know us because it did not know him.” (verse 1)
Does that mean we should only huddle with ourselves and never intermingle with the other? Of course not. Paul wrote the Corinthians about that (1 Cor. 5), but we should always know who is our real Family.
Back in the turn of the 20th century, there was a modern movement labelling God as Father. And the “fatherhood of God” movement was a sentimental washout and a misunderstanding of this reality. It labelled all of us as God’s children. It diminished the cross. It diminished sin’s reality. Listen how Oswald Chambers addressed that error here:
“The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was made to be sin. Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy with us. We are acceptable with God not because we have obeyed, or because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Fatherhood of God, the lovingkindness of God; the New Testament says He came to bear away the sin of the world.”
John is emphasizing three things in this chapter. The family relationship (Father and sons), the love of God that is his ever-present basis of all his enterprise and thus should be ours, and the separation of believers from the world. These are not unique to this chapter, but they bulge out of the manuscript, don’t they?
Verse two—we are not yet revealed. Think of it; we are not done. We are progressing toward spiritual maturity; we are not the finished product. He says in verse 3 when he appears, when he returns to set up his throne in Jerusalem, we will be like him. WOW—finally! The hope of Psalm 17.15 will be realized. “Then I will be satisfied, when I awake in your likeness.” I’m content now, but I will be satisfied then!
How will that change happen? Paul said, it will be in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, and John says that everyone who has this hope, this anticipation of the return of Yeshua, this hope on him, purifies himself, even as he is pure.
Verse 4, we see the topic of sin again. The one who practices in a continual way, the one who sins again and again and again, because his nature is sinful and he desires to live in those wrong actions, he’s a sinner in John’s world. He says “sin is lawlessness.” Remember, Torah is light and rejection of that light leads to darkness. Sin is darkness and walking away from the Father of Lights. It’s a defiant walk away from the Lord of Light. And from our new nature. We are light in the Lord!
There are other definitions of sin in the Scripture: Romans 14.23 (not of faith), Prov 24.9 (the thought of foolishness), and later in this book John will say that “all unrighteousness” is sin. (5.17)
John says in verse 5, Yeshua appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. That’s the reason Yeshua came. Again in verse 8, Yeshua came to destroy the works of the devil. Satan is real. John says Yeshua won the battle, and by that the word translated ‘destroy’ should be rendered “to render inoperative” or “to rob of power.” Satan is not annihilated and his works like Covid 19 are not gone, but his power has been reduced. He is no match for the God of all power.
Verse 9 will confuse some of us. “No one who is born of God practices sin.” For that, we have to look to the Lord of Light to help us see him in our struggles to overcome, in our desire to live as John says ‘in righteousness.’
John is not teaching sinless perfectionism; we have an advocate (2.1). He is teaching that the general reality, the main life we are to live is to represent Yeshua, and live a life of right standing.
Verse 11: we are to love one another. It’s the message we have said since the beginning. In contrast to Cain. Did you know that Cain’s deeds were evil? He brought an offering, but it was not in faith. Using Cain’s name brings to the mind of the Ephesians to whom John is writing that there are those who were close, but didn’t make it.
Verse 13… don’t be surprised. The world hates you. How do you know love? How are you sure that you are an insider? You love the brothers. How do we know love? Verse 16. Yeshua died for our sins. He laid down his life for us. We ought to love one another. LIKE HE LOVED. Like James said, “so speak and so act” (2.12) It’s got to be working out in your ethics as well as your theology.
Verse 21, if you don’t let your heart condemn you, you will have confidence before God and pray and He will hear and answer you. What’s it based on? Our faith? Our love? Nope—his love! And because he has loved us and welcomed us into his family, I respond to that. That’s FAITH. It’s a response to what God has initiated.
And as is typical of John’s writing, at the end of the day, “FAITH”, verse 23: ‘believe in the name of his son Yeshua the Messiah, and love one another.” He uses the term ‘abide’ as is his custom. See John 15. There is a relationship. The branch abides in the trunk of the tree, and they share sap, which produces fruit. Branches don’t struggle to exist or to accomplish tasks. They remain. The sap of the tree produces fruit on the branches.
So God wants us to stay the love course together with one another until Messiah returns. Will you join us? Will you be confident in the Lord? God’s promise is eternal life (Chapter 2: 25). Let’s live in that today.
INVITATION
Dear friends, if you’d like to have the forgiveness and the fellowship about which I spoke, you can do so today. Just now you can pray and find that the God of love extends his life to you in giving you pardon for all your sins. That forgiveness will usher you into the freedoms of knowing the God of love. Isn’t that a wonderful idea?
If you’d like that, please pray and ask God to forgive you your sins and to make you born again.
Then let us know you have done this, won’t you? Write to us (admin@jewsforjesus.org.au) and tell us you have prayed for the first time. We want to send you some literature and welcome you to the family.
And if you have any questions, use that same address, ok?
And join us next week as I continue the 5-part series from the first letter of John.
Until then, Shabbat shalom.
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Bibliography
Smalley, Stephen, 1 John, Word Biblical Commentary Series, Thomas Nelson, Grand Rapids, 1973.
Weirsbe, Warren, Be Real, Victor Books, David C. Cook, Colorado Springs, 1972.
Also, to see the whole book in one short graphic and wonderful summary, watch this video:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/course/1-john-introduction/#overview
Actual text
1John 3:1 See 1ahow great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called bchildren of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because cit did not know Him. 2 aBeloved, now we are bchildren of God, and cit has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He dappears, we will be elike Him, because we will fsee Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this ahope fixed on Him bpurifies himself, just as He is pure.
1John 3:4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and asin is lawlessness. 5 You know that He aappeared in order to btake away sins; and cin Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him asins; no one who sins has seen Him or 1bknows Him. 7 aLittle children, make sure no one bdeceives you; cthe one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is aof the devil; for the devil 1has sinned from the beginning. bThe Son of God cappeared for this purpose, dto destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one who is 1aborn of God bpractices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is 1born of God. 10 By this the achildren of God and the bchildren of the devil are obvious: 1anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who cdoes not love his dbrother.
1John 3:11 aFor this is the message bwhich you have heard from the beginning, cthat we should love one another; 12 not as aCain, who was of bthe evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because chis deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.
1John 3:13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, bbecause we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who ahates his brother is a murderer; and you know that bno murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 16 We know love by this, that aHe laid down His life for us; and bwe ought to lay down our lives for the cbrethren. 17 But awhoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, chow does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. 19 We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him 20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
1John 3:23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. 24 The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
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