Basic Training -- 1 John 2:7-14

But it's a joy to be able to be here with you. Again, I'll repeat what Dex has said. Happy Father's Day. I appreciate all of you who are fathers—both in terms of physical fatherhood but also those who are spiritual fathers. I have gained a lot from many of the spiritual fathers in this congregation who have taught me what it looks like to be a godly man by your example, and I give praise to God and thanks for the spiritual fathers as well as all of us who are physical fathers.

So we are looking at 1 John together as a congregation for the summertime, and 1 John is basically a call to the basics of the Christian faith. Here John lays out in this letter the foundations of Christianity, and as John reflects on what it looks like to focus in on the basics of the life of a Christian, he focuses most on love. Love to John is the primary measurement in the life of a Christian. The way that love is shown in our obedience to our heavenly father, the way that love is shown in our community to our brothers and sisters in Christ—this is the thing that John wants to see as people come to understand the truth of Christianity.

And in the passage that we're going to look at today, John shows that no matter how educated, no matter how theologically savvy you are, no matter how old you are, what you and I all need to focus in on is how we mature in love. But in this passage, he helps us to see how this love matures. Ultimately, the way that love matures is not that we create in us love. That love is something that we receive. Love is something that we hear. That is what I hope for us to see today as we gather together.

This is the outline for today: that love is received. But as we reflect on it, we are going to read together this passage as is the custom of this church. We're going to read together 1 John chapter 2, verses 7 through 14. CTK, will you read this with me? Three, two, one.

Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you. Because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in the darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. I'm writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I'm writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord stands forever. — 1 John 2:7-14

Thanks be to God. I'm going to pause and pray that God would bless our time before I unpack this text. Pray along with me in your hearts.

Creator of light, we pray that you would bring light into the darkness of our minds and hearts through the light of your word and your son, that it may be a lamp unto our feet. Amen.

Understanding Love

So first John wants us to understand love. Now, I was watching recently a documentary that some of y'all may have watched. It was about Ernest Hemingway, the great American author, and it was interesting to hear a little bit more about the fabric of his life, the way that he grew up, and the things that influenced him. But the one thing that most stuck out to me about Ernest Hemingway was the relationship that he had with his mother. Notice—it's Father's Day, but I'm going to pick on a mother because it's the fathers you get a free pass today—but his mother was a hard presence in his life. It was a challenging relationship that they had, and as Ernest grew up, he began to distance from his mother. His mother was a very strong woman. She was a choir director. She was always pushing Ernest to do better and to be better, but as he grew up, he tried to distance himself from her and her voice.

And at one point in the documentary, they read out a letter that his mother wrote to Ernest, and it says this:

For the last three years, since you decided, Ernest, at the age of 18, that you did not need any further advice or guidance from your parents, I've tried to keep silent and let you work out your own salvation. And by this, I mean your own philosophy of life, your code of ethics for dealing with men and women and children. But now at the age of 21, I shall brave your anger and speak this once more to you. A mother's love seems to me like a bank.

Each child that is born to her enters into this world with a large and prosperous bank account. The mother is practically a slave to the young child's every whim, but there are no deposits back into the bank account during all the early years. But as the child becomes a man, the bank is still paying out love with sympathy for wrongs and enthusiasm for all his ventures. But then she goes on in the letter to begin to list to Ernest all the things that her son could do to make a few deposits back into the account to keep it in good standing. Like praising her cooking, showing an interest in her singing, or even giving her gifts of flowers for her birthday. And she concludes the letter by saying this:

Unless you, my son, Ernest, come to yourself. Cease your lazy loafing and pleasure seeking. Barring with no thought of returning and neglecting your duties to God and your Savior Jesus Christ. Unless in other words, you come into your manhood. There is nothing before you but bankruptcy. You have overdrawn.

What a powerful letter. There she's in a sense seeing a character deficit in Ernest that the documentary does go on to show is real—that there was a sense of selfishness and darkness that surrounded Ernest, that he consumed a lot of people in his life. She noticed that. But how is it that she encourages him to maturity? How is it that she calls him to love? It's with a threat. It's by saying, unless you begin to love me, unless you praise me, unless you focus on me Ernest, my love for you will disappear. In fact, she says it already has.

Now, this is the way that a lot of us think about God. This is the way that a lot of us think that God calls us to maturity, to love. Like, he says, alright, I've been patient with you. I've been forgiving with you. I've been trying to help you along, but if you don't start doing something back, my love's going to disappear. But John is writing a similar letter. He's writing to people he calls his children and he's writing to them seeing that there's a need for them to grow in love, for them to mature into a selflessness of giving and caring for their brothers and sisters in Christ. But the way that John does it is instructive because he does not follow the path of Mrs. Hemingway. He doesn't say that you have to love or you will have the love of the Father disappear. But instead what he does is he says that the only way that you will grow in maturity, the only way that you will grow in your ability to love is if you come to understand the love of the Father.

John here wants us to see that the way that you become more loving, the way that love grows in your life is if you receive it. It's when you know the love of God. But John wants us to see in the first part that this is the call of the Christian life—that the call of the Christian life is to love. John calls his audience to love, wanting them to see that the call to love is something that is perpetually before the Christian. And he does it with his confusing language in the beginning of this passage where he says:

Beloved, I'm writing to you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I'm writing to you.

That language can seem confusing and kind of contradictory, right? John, which is it? Is it an old commandment or is it a new commandment? But John uses those two things—old and new—to see that this is a constant present in the life of the Christian. The call to love is not something that came once to us and is no longer enforced or is something that is ahead of us that we haven't yet achieved, but is constantly present in the life of the Christian. It is, as John says, both old and new.

When he says it's old, he's wanting us to understand that this is from the beginning of your understanding Christianity. From the very moment that you become a Christian, the idea that you are called to love is built into the fabric of the story of Jesus. It's both explicit and implicit in the gospel. You know, I received an email the other day that said, three free nights at Myrtle Beach, and I was like, I like Myrtle Beach. I like three free nights. How do I go? How do I get this? And then I go and there's this little asterisk there, right? And so then I have to follow all the way down to the bottom of the email where it says, with an eight hour presentation about a timeshare that we're going to make you feel really bad if you don't buy. The call to love is not like that. It's not something hidden away in the small print of the gospel, but the call to love is built into the fabric of what it means to come to know Jesus.

When Jesus was teaching his disciples what it looked like to love, he said the greatest sign of obedience to the Father, the greatest commandment is this:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

The way that he pictures what this love looks like is with the example of the Good Samaritan sacrificing for your enemy. The night before his betrayal, as Jesus was gathering with his disciples, he lays out what the purest picture of love is when he says:

Greater love has no man than this that he lays down his life for his friends. — John 15:13

Jesus made it clear to those who are listening to him that the expectation of following Jesus is to live your life fully loving others. But it's not just that he explicitly communicated it, he implicitly demonstrated. The whole life of Jesus was love. After he says, "greater love has no man than this that he lays down his life for his friends," what did he do? He went to the cross. He laid down his life for his friends.

Love is explicitly commanded by Jesus and implicitly presented to us in the beauty and the power of his life and the way that every step of his life was a life of love, a step of love. Jesus said:

This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. — John 13:34

The gospel shows us what a mature life of love looks like. Jesus living out a life of love for the father that led to a life-giving love to others and as Christians, this is what we're called to look like. As Christians, you become like Jesus. As Christians, your character reflects his character. As a Christian, your goal is to look like him, to have your life reflect his life, his love become your identity. You become like what you worship. And as you worship Jesus, your life should begin to look more and more like his love.

And to some of you, you may say, alright, I get it. That's why John says, this is old. I know that. I've been around. I've heard this before. And the commandment to love may seem basic, may be assumed. You're like, I get this, Chuck. This is old news. But that's actually part of the problem. Part of the problem is we begin to assume that we already know that love is important as opposed to it being something that is constantly before us as a goal to strive for.

Old Commandment, New Commandment

And that's why John says, alright, this is an old commandment but this is also a new commandment. When John says that this is a new commandment, what he means is that this is vital for you to remember, vital for you to keep ahead of you, vital to wake up in the morning and see, this is my new goal for the day to do the old thing of loving.

And so what this reminds us is that you never outgrow growing in love. You never outgrow growing in love. The commandment in this way is always new. Love is not just a step in growing as a Christian. Love is the step in being a Christian. The commandment to love is always new so that every step of the life of the Christian is a step of love and that's why John uses the language of walking. That all your life should be reflecting love.

But often what we focus on is not the simple aspect of love, but we focus on things that dazzle the eyes of others. We're more concerned about how do they think about me when I'm praying than do they feel my love for them and that I'm praying for them. We neglect love or make it an afterthought when prioritizing the things to focus on in our life. We think about things that feel more powerful, more important, more pressing.

What do you do in the shower? Oftentimes, you think about the person that's bothering you and how you can defeat them in the argument or what you should have said the other day that would have shown them who's really right or who the real jerk is as opposed to using that time to pray to love them more.

What's your desire in your marriage? It's for your spouse to change, right? Because they're the wrong ones. They're the problem. As opposed to having a desire to love them more earnestly, to be more faithful, to care for them, to sacrifice for them.

What's your frustration with the church? Your frustration with the church is the way that the leaders or the programs are not listening to you or not serving you or not giving you what you want as opposed to seeing that your frustration with the church is you. And the way you're not caring for the other people in your community group. That you're not loving well the people that have differing views in your church.

John wants us to understand that the nature of love is always before us. That love is not easy. Love is not basic. Love is not a first step but love is the life of the believer and unless and until you love perfectly, love is the focus of our growth as a Christian.

Your primary metric, your ultimate goal is to love like Jesus. How are you doing with that? I know I don't love like Jesus. And John wants us to see that that is what we are striving for. To have a love like him so that every breath, every step of our life is one that is marked by full love. Just as every breath and every step of the savior was one that was breathing and stepping out love into this world.

But how? How is it that we could do that?

As I begin to think about that, it feels weighty. It feels daunting—like I just want to give up. How could I ever love like that? John wants us to understand that this kind of love is not something that we create in us. It's not something that we muster up in us, but that this love is something that has to be received.

There's a powerful thing that John says in this passage when he speaks about this commandment to love. He says this:

At the same time, it is a new commandment that I'm writing to you which is true in him and in you. — 1 John 2:7-8

This commandment is true in him and you. Now, we've just been talking about how this was true in Jesus and so it should become true in us, but what John is actually saying here is it's not just that it should become true in you, but that it already is. John is doing something interesting. He's wanting to help us to see that the love that we need to live out a life of love is not something that we've got to muster up inside of us. It's not something that we create inside of us, but that it is already there. The love is already there, and so for us to love, it's not saying that we build or create—it's what we receive.

Light and Darkness

John shows us this in an interesting way by using the language of darkness and light. He begins to talk about darkness and light, and throughout John's writings, if you go and read the gospel of John, if you read through all the letters of John, he loves to use the imagery of darkness and light. But as he uses the idea of darkness and light throughout his writings, he doesn't use it to talk about morality. He talks about light and darkness to speak about God's presence in the world.

I'm going to take you on a little journey. If you go back to the beginning of the Bible, if you go back to the first moment of creation in Genesis chapter one, the world starts out in what way? Darkness. That's the way the world starts out—in darkness. But then what happens? The first step of creation is this: God saying, what?

Let there be light. — Genesis 1:3

That's the first step of creation. Light enters into the emptiness of the world and begins to shape it. It was formless and void. Light enters and it gives order and shape. Light enters into the world before the sun was made. Now, how could light enter into the world before the sun? Some Jewish rabbis as they unpack that passage say this: that light that entered into the world was the effulgent splendor of the divine presence. The effulgent splendor of the divine presence. What they're saying is that light entered the world because the glory of God entered the world. Into the darkness that existed as things were just being made, God's presence comes into this world and brings his glory and brings his light and brings his life. The first act of creation is to fill the world with the glorious life of God.

Then, in John chapter one, as John is writing the gospel, he says that Jesus was there at creation, that the creation was made by him and through him, that the Word of God is what created it, and that is Jesus. And he says this about Jesus:

In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. — John 1:4-5

Do you hear what John is saying there in the gospel? He's saying that to John, the light of the world is the presence of the living God in the world. To John, light is the life of Christ present in his creation. And so to John, lightness and darkness are very important, and it's important for us to understand this: these are not moral categories. Walking in the light is not about doing good. Walking in the light is about finding your life in the life of Jesus.

And that's why John says:

Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. But whoever loves his brother abides in light and in them, there is no cause for stumbling. — 1 John 2:9-10

To John, a life that has hate shows that you are in the darkness. What he means by that is that the life of God has not entered into your heart. To hate shows that there is an emptiness, a formless void in your heart that is needing the glory of God to come in and shine into it his love. To hate is an absence of the love of God, leaving you empty.

But to love, John says, is to abide in the light. Abiding in the light is to daily, moment by moment, root your life in the life of Jesus and his love for you. You see, to John, love is not a moral act. Love is the breaking into your life of a new creation. Love is not just a value to have. Love is the presence of the life of God coming into the darkness of your life. Love is the fruit of finding your life in Jesus.

In other words, if Jesus brings love into your life, if he breathes love into your lungs, if he pours love into your soul, how can it not be that love breaks out of your life into the world of darkness?

If you are abiding in the light of his love so that the very marrow of your being is infused with the love of Jesus, how could that not shape every step that you walk? This is why John says, love is true in him and in you. You cannot have Jesus in your life and not love. His love is true as he enters into your life and he says, he speaks into the emptiness of your soul, love. He comes into the darkness of your life and shapes it according to the glorious nature of his love.

If you have your bicycle wheel bent, you take it to the bicycle mechanic and they straighten it and when they straighten it, they call it truing your wheel. They make your wheel to go back to what it was supposed to be. They make it to be true and that's what John says happens to us. As God comes into the bentness of our life, he shapes it back to be the love that it's supposed to be and that's how we grow in love. With God coming into our life, Jesus coming into our life and truing us to make us to be what he proclaims us to be, his beloved children. John says, this is true in him and in you. When you are in Christ, your life is shaped by his love.

John's Song of Love

Now, John does something interesting in this passage. He wants us to marinate in this. This is what we need to love, and so what he does is he sings this into our hearts. If you have your Bibles open, you can see in the way that the Bibles are formatted that this is a poetic song that John begins to sing to us in verse 12. The way that it's broken out is in poetry because John wants to sing into the love of Jesus. But the interesting way that he does it is by starting in verse 12.

I'm writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. — 1 John 2:12

Now, as he speaks of little children, he isn't speaking of little children but that's a way that he speaks out of love to all of his readers. He thinks of them as his children in faith and he's pointing them back to the reality that the love of God does abide with them. Why? Because of the love of Jesus and John wants his readers to know with confidence that that love that they have, that love that is spoken into their hearts is not like Missus Hemingway's letter—a love that can go bankrupt, a love that can disappear. But he wants them to know that that love is secure.

And so John sings this song and he sings it twice. He sings it twice speaking to little children and then fathers and young men and then children and fathers and young men and I think that the reason that he does it is because he wants us to see that this song that he's singing is true in Jesus and is true in us. That it's true in him and so it's true in you.

Children, Fathers, and Young Men

Think about it this way. As John sings this song, he speaks about children in the middle of this passage.

I write to you children because you know the Father. — 1 John 2:13

What do we see happen to Jesus when he is a child? We see Jesus leave his parents and where does he go? He goes to the temple and they were frantic looking for him. They thought he was lost and they go to the temple and what does Jesus say when they say, why are you here?

Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house? — Luke 2:49

Right from the beginning of his life, what was Jesus as a child? One who labored to know the voice of the Father by coming to his temple and hearing about him, hearing about his words. Jesus as a child labored to know the Father so that he could listen to the Father's voice so that he would know this: that the love of God was true for him. He received his Father's love because he knew he needed to hear that voice to shape the way that he loved others into this world.

Speaking of young men, what does John say?

Young men overcome the evil one. — 1 John 2:13

Have you overcome the evil one? No, the way that we overcome the evil one is not us, but Jesus. But how does Jesus overcome the evil one? We see this in the story of Jesus. After he was baptized as a young man, as he was entering into his ministry, we see Jesus being baptized and after that, he goes out to the wilderness where he's tempted by the evil one. Where the evil one tempts him three times to deny the love of the Father and to seek for himself and what does he do every time? He responds with the word of God. He fights the lies of the evil one by reminding himself and the evil one the truth of God's love for him.

And what do we see even before he goes out into the evil one to wrestle with the devil? As Jesus was being baptized by John, a voice breaks out of heaven and into this earth that says:

This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. — Matthew 3:17

How is it that Jesus wrestled against the evil one? It's by listening to the voice of love of the Father. Abiding in that voice, abiding in that love that strengthened him to go out and to fight the evil one.

And we hear the voice of the father speaking one other time to Jesus, his love and it was at the point that's commonly called the transfiguration of Jesus. As Jesus goes up onto a mountain top and then Moses comes and Elijah comes and they speak to him about what Matthew calls the Exodus—about the cross. And as Jesus is preparing for what he's about to do, to go and free his people from their sins, God's voice again speaks out and says:

This is my beloved son. Listen to him. Listen to him.

God is saying that his voice is my voice. His voice is the one that made the world, that brought light into the world. Listen to his voice. Receive his voice as though it is my own.

And then Jesus goes to the cross and what happens on the cross? In the brightest moment of the day, darkness, right? Darkness descends. Darkness descends as Jesus is bearing on his body our sins. And why is it that darkness descends? Because he is entering into the lack of the love of the father. The absence of the presence of the voice that speaks love into his heart. And he enters into that. Why? Because he doesn't want us to ever lack that voice. He doesn't want us to ever know what he had to know—the absence of the voice of his loving father.

He entered into that darkness so that he would rise again from the dead at the first light of Easter to show us that, as John says, the darkness is passing away and the true light is shining. He entered into the darkness to break its power so that we would always have the light of the love of the father with us.

John is singing that into your heart. He's wanting you to see the way that this was true in Jesus' life—that he needed the voice of love from the father in order to live a life of love. But he gave up that voice so that you and I would never have to. So that you and I would never fear that the father would turn away from us.

And it's as we accept the voice of Jesus into our life that, as John says, it's only by the name of Jesus that our sins are forgiven, that we know that the full and complete love of God is ours forever. You cannot love others when you worry that love will disappear. And John wants his readers to know that every time they hear the name of Jesus, their love is secure. That his love abides with them forever.

And he sings into the heart of his readers this reminder of the way that Jesus heard the love of the father so that they can hear the love of the father. Love does not come through self creation. You cannot speak into your life this kind of love. Love has to be heard and received in order to heal.

And John holds this out to us but he sings this song twice so that we remember the love of the father that Jesus knew so that we too begin to live out this kind of love. He sings this into us so that we sing this into others. John wants his readers to understand how love shaped Jesus so it shapes their life too.

What It Means to Be a Father

And so he does speak to fathers to say to them: know him who is from the beginning, which John often uses to refer to Jesus. What does it look like to be a father? This is for all of us. This is for every Christian. What does it look like to be a mature Christian? It's this: to have a deep abiding knowledge of Jesus. To know his voice, to study his voice, to hear that voice of love so clearly that it's an abiding presence in your life. That every step you take is a step that is made in light of the voice of Jesus with you.

This is what John wants us to strive for—to know this. But this is also what we need each other for. We need people in here to be fathers like this to us. Whether or not your earthly father was like that, we hope that in this congregation, we can find fathers like that. Women and men that show us what it looks like to live a life of love shaped by Jesus.

You know, every summer I get a letter from a woman who's 92 years old. She's walked with Jesus many years and she sends a letter along with a support check. The support check's fine, but the letter is what counts. And in the letter, she always writes the most encouraging and beautiful words like, "I'm so thankful for the way that you are loving students. I'm so thankful that there are students that wanna know Jesus. I'm so thankful that God loves them."

And that letter ministers to my heart because in it, I see someone who has walked with Jesus for many years and Jesus bleeds out of that letter into my life. That's the kind of fathers that we need. That's the kind of fathers that we as earthly fathers should strive for. But that's the kind of fathers that you can find here in this community—men and women who have walked with Jesus for many years. You come around them and you know what love looks like.

John mentions young men, speaking to people in the prime of their life, saying that these young men should strive to overcome the evil one. But how do they overcome the evil one? He tells us at the end of the passage: because the word of God abides in you.

How is it that you begin to have a life shaped by love? It's not by mustering that strength up in yourself, but it is by hiding the word of God in your heart. It's by abiding day in, day out in the words that Jesus says to you and about you.

How is it that you gain the strength to love your children when you're at wit's end? How is it that you can gain the strength to love your enemies? How is it that you can gain the strength of love to defeat sin? It's by going back again and again and again to the voice of Jesus in your life. Hearing your savior say that you are the delight of my eyes and I am with you always.

And lastly, he speaks to children using a different word in the middle of this passage than he does in verse 12, using the word paideia, which gives that sense of a child learner. Just like Jesus went and learned about the Father, he reminds us that this too is what we are supposed to be like—learners that long to understand who the Father is, to learn what his character is like.

There's a show I've been watching on Netflix that some of y'all may have watched called Lupin. It's a French show and I watch it in French with English subtitles. Highly recommend it that way. In one of the recent episodes, the son is asked by another character, "Who's your favorite character in this book that you're reading?" The book is about a criminal who's the main character, and the boy says that character, Lupin, is his favorite. The other person says, "Why? He's a criminal. Shouldn't you pick someone else?" He says, "I like that character because he reminds me of my father. My father is my favorite person in this world."

That's what John wants us to have—that kind of heart of a child that looks up and says, "My father is the greatest thing in this world, and that's what I want to be like. That's what I want to love. That's what I want to shape me."

John wants us to understand the beautiful love of God for us, seen clearly in Jesus, so that that is the light that is spoken into our heart that, as he says, dispels the darkness. It breaks the darkness because the light of Jesus is shining that love into our heart. That's a love that you cannot build. That's a love that you cannot make. But friends, that is a love that you can receive, that you can know, that you can hear.

That light is shining. Do you see it? Do you hear it? Amen.

Let us pray. Our heavenly Father, we thank you for the depth of love that you have for us and the way that it shines truly through Jesus. Help that light to push out every speck of darkness in our hearts, that we are made more to be like you, the God who is love and is our beloved Father. Amen.