Date: 16 February 2025, 9.30 am
Speaker: Ps Luwin Wong Sermon Text: 1 John 2:1-17
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TRANSCRIPT
It seems to me that the apostle John could benefit from attending one of the many conferences organised today on church growth or attractional church ministry. He is quite clearly clueless know how to win a crowd isn’t he?
Consider his words
1 John 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1 John 1:10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
I mean, come on.
Has no one told him that people do not like hearing about their sins and self-deception? It’s not very motivational and it does not build up self-esteem . You don’t create the positive vibes and feel-good factor that people come to church for.
It is almost scandalous how John opens his letter to the church assuming that they are sinful and that they are sinning, assuming that there exists a very real possibility that some of them are self-deceived about their faith and thereby need to be warned against such a thing.
Surely he would be writing differently if the letter was addressed to Mt Hermon.
The thing is this. Talk of sin and self-examination isn’t very heart-warming, it may not spark joy, it may not feel emotionally uplifting. But it is the plain and grounded truth.
Inasmuch as the church is a fellowship of saints, it is also a congregation of sinners – yes, a particular sort of sinners. Justified sinners, repentant sinners, forgiven sinners, but sinners nonetheless.
And so John opens today’s passage with these words:
1 JOHN 2:11 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
The apostle John writes to the children of God, so that we do not do something we ought not to do.
There are three things John wants us to refrain from doing.
DON’T LIE TO OURSELVES
We sin when our action betray our confession.
DON’T LIVE LIKE ORPHANS
We sin when we live as though we do not know God as Father.
DON’T LOVE THE WORLD
We sin when we are in love with the world.
First, the children of God don’t lie to themselves.
In 1:6 he writes,
1 JOHN 1:6 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth
And he repeats this formula in 2:4
1 JOHN 2:4 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him
And the question is, now this lie, to whom is it directed – whom are we lying to?
The answer is found in 1:8,
1 JOHN 1:8 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Again the same formulation, and this time, our deception, he specifies, is a self-deception. We are lying to ourselves.
Jordan Peterson once debated atheist academic Susan Blackmore on Christian talkshow called the Big Conversation. The title of the debate was: “Do we need God to make sense of life?”
And in the midst of the conversation, Jordan Peterson said that most atheists are not true atheists.
Susan Blackmore replied, “But I am an atheist”. And he said, “No, you’re not … you’re simply not an atheist in your actions.”
She said, “Don't you think it's kind of offensive to say to me that that I'm not an atheist when I am?”
Now what was the basis of his claim, when Peterson, who is a clinical psychologist, asserts that most atheist are self-deceived about their own atheism?
In his book, 12 Rules for Life, he writes:
“It is your actions that most accurately reflect your deepest beliefs—those that are implicit, embedded in your being, underneath your conscious apprehensions and articulable attitudes and surface-level self-knowledge. You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don’t know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself.”
Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 103)
What he’s saying, is that we know very little about our true condition. What we do not know about ourselves far outstrips what we do know about ourselves. What we are aware and conscious about ourselves only scratches the surface of the complexity of our being, there is so much going on underneath, at a sub-conscious level.
That the best indicator of who we are and what we truly believe, finds its clearest expression not in our speech, but in our actions. Not in our talk, but in our walk.
As Rick Warren once poignantly told his congregation, “You only believe the parts of the Bible that you live.”
It is the way we live that reflects what we believe. Not what we say.
Now, the opposite of lying to ourselves is knowing the truth about ourselves.
And so John tells how we can know. This is how we know.
1 JOHN 2:3-6 3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
We know what we have come to know God, we know what we are the children of God, when we keep his commandments and walk in the same way in which Christ walked.
How would you summarise the commandments of God, how would you summarise the way of Jesus Christ?
In a word, “Love”.
So John goes on to describe this commandment, this walking in the light,
1 JOHN 2:7-8 7 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. 8 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.
The commandment is both old and new, because the commandment to love is foundational, and embedded and implicit in the entire corpus of Old Testament Law, but it appears new, because the New Testaments distills the essence of the Law and makes it explicit, so much so that the New Testament writers would summarize the Law as “Loving your neighbour”.
GALATIANS 5:14 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
JAMES 2:8 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,”
And so John goes on to speak about love and hate.
1 JOHN 2:9-11 9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
So Hermonites, how do we know that we are the children of God? We know that we have come to know God when we abide the light, when we walk in the way of Christ, we keep the commandment of God – and is to say, when we love our neighbour, when we love our brother.
11 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.
So blinded his eyes, he is unable to see the truth about himself, so shrouded in darkness, he walks in self-deception about his relationship with the Father. For God is light, and no one who walks in darkness walks with Jesus Christ.
So here’s the first sin to avoid in our sermon today:
Avoid self-deception
DON’T LIE TO OURSELVES
We sin when our action betray our confession.When we do not love our brother.
Which raises the question: do you harbour hatred, resentment, unforgiveness, animosity in your heart towards your brother, or sister today, that you have no desire to put away?
It is absurd to sing.
He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
He lives, He lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives?
He lives within my heart.
Light and darkness cannot co-exist. One will necessarily dispel the other. If you cherish the darkness of hatred in your heart, don’t kid yourself in thinking that Christ the light of the world lives there too.
Repent, forgive, reconcile, love. This is how you know that you have truly come to know God.
John presents to us the challenge of loving constantly and consistently in every relationship and interaction. In our every act either we are loving others or we are sinning against them. We are either loving others or lying to ourselves.
Each time we fail to love we give in to the darkness, our vision is dimmed, and our confession is compromised.
John tells us, you are either a lover of your brother, or a liar to yourself. You either a lover or a liar, pick your side, will it darkness or light?
If you have chosen Christ, then as his followers, walk in the way that he did.
If you have chosen God, then as his children, reflect the image of your Father.
Which brings us to our second point:
Don’t live as orphans. Don’t live as though you have not been adopted into the family of God. Live consistent with your identity in Christ.
This is why he now addresses the church in the intergenerational categories you find in a household. Children, Fathers, Young men.
He repeats them in couplets, to reinforce and to remind the church of their identity in Christ, so that they may live consistent with it.
1 JOHN 2:12-14 12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
13b I write to you, children, because you know the Father.
14 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.
Knowing who you are is central in guiding how you live.
I was visiting my godkids in the Philippines over the Chinese New Year break, and whilst I was there we caught Mufasa together.
This is prequel movie to The Lion King.
Suffice to say, had this been the movie that was produced first, there would not have been a sequel. There would have been remake, a reboot. Try again.
In The Lion King, Simba the heir to the throne, was deceived by his evil uncle Scar, into believing that he was a useless, good-for-nothing who was responsible for his father’s death and therefore unfit to be the lion king.
Simba, believing that lie, began to live in accord with it. He made friends with prey animals a warthog and a meerkat. Started eating worms and bugs like them, and lived in the jungle with them instead of in the savannah, where lions live.
What turned Simba’s life around and led to him becoming The Lion King was a vision of his Father, Mufasa, confronting him with the words:
“Simba, you have forgotten me.”
And Simba, replies, “No! How could I?”
And Mufasa says, “You have forgotten who you are, and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the circle of life.”
In other words, the problem with Simba’s lifestyle is a problem with his self-identity. He has identified himself as a failure and as an outcast, he has identified himself with a warthog and a meerkat. And as a result he is living Hakuna Matata, and not as The Lion King.
What he needs is to be reminded, and to remember, who he is. He is more than what he has become. He is living beneath his destiny. He is not living up to the level of his true identity.
Family of God, that could be the same for us.
1 JOHN 2:12-14 12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
13b I write to you, children, because you know the Father.
14 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.
Do you know who you are in Christ? Are you aware of your glorious destiny? Are you living up to your Christian identity?
We, like Simba, can sometimes forget our Father, when we forget who we are. We live beneath our identity, and resemble the rest the world.
We sin, and excuse ourselves by saying, we’ll nobody’s perfect, can’t be too hard on myself To err, is human, and I am but human. We hate our brother and we go, well, considering what he has done, anyone else in my position would the same.
I once told Kianna, when someone had upset her, that we ought to be nice to others even if they are mean to us. And she asked me why should she do that? And I told her because Jesus was nice to us, even when we were mean to him. And she protested, “But that’s Jesus!” And I told her, “Yes, and if you believe in him, he lives in you.”
And that is what is John is saying to us. Remember who you are.
Remember that your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.
Remembers that you know him who is from the beginning, as your Father.
Remember you are strong, that word of God abides in you.
Remember that you have overcome the evil one.
You are stronger than your temptations, with the Word of God living in you, you can overcome the darkness in your heart.
Don’t give up, don’t give in, don’t lose sight of who you are, and don’t excuse your sin by saying, “I’m only human”.
There is a band called the “The Human League”, and their hit song which reached #1 in the Billboard’s Top 100, was a song aptly titled “Human”.
It’s a song about infidelity. And he’s singing to his partner, asking for forgiveness. The chorus serves as his mitigation plea for his infidelity, and it goes:
The Human League - Human
I'm only human
Of flesh and blood I'm made
Human
Born to make mistakes
Now that’s absurd excuse, even by human standards. I do not know of any couple who have reconciled after an infidelity on account of that song.
It’s absurd, even by human standards. But family of God, we are more than only human, we are more than merely flesh and blood. We are the children of God, born again not to make mistakes, but to overcome the evil one.
To err is human, but we are more than human, the divine dwells within us.We sin, but sinner is not our identity, we are overcomers.
Our earthly life ought to manifest the character of the eternal life we have received.
We fall prey to sin, when we forget who we are – children of our heavenly Father.
So family of God, don’t live like orphans.
DON’T LIVE LIKE ORPHANS
We sin when we live as though we do not know God as Father.Live as children of God who has overcome the evil one.
Finally, the third sin to avoid in our passage today.
DON’T LOVE THE WORLD
We sin when we are in love with the world.
1 JOHN 2:15-17 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world —the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
When John talks about the world, he refers to the sphere of human existence which is under the sway of the evil one. The world has its own value system, its own inherent character and power, and it is opposed, in antithesis to the kingdom of God.
Worldliness is characterized by three things: the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – which is reminiscent of original sin, when Eve saw that the forbidden fruit was good for food (desire of the flesh), a delight to the eyes (desire of the eye), and could make one wise like God (the pride of life), and so took and ate it, against the command of God, and it led to death.
John gives us two reasons why we should not love the world.
The first reason is because the world is not of God – it is evil, hollow, and deceptive.
The world is a scam. All it offers are empty promises. It will not reward you, not satisfy you, and the deeper you are hooked into the scam, the more it will take from you. And the world, in the end, will cost you your very life.
But it looks so good, the pleasures of the world look so good, don’t they! Yes, they do, but don’t believe it. Don’t buy into it. It does not hold true value, for it is not of God.
PayLess, as its name suggests, is a budget shoe store chain. Their business model is that you get to pay less for shoes. Their products are cheap and their store image reflects that.
And then they conducted a social experiment.
In 2018, Payless Shoesource The chain fabricated a fake luxury store called “Palessi and staged a “grand opening” of the line’s expensive shoes in a high-end mall in Los Angeles.
The Palessi showcased none other than Payless shoes, typically priced between $20 and $40, but Palessi listed them at exaggerated prices of up to $645. All the trappings of luxury were there: the fawning fashionistas, the camera crews, the velvet ropes.
Influencers were invited to the launch, and they praised the shoes, describing them as “stunning,” “elegant,” and “high-quality,” completely unaware that the products were Payless produced.
Sure enough, unsuspecting shoppers shelled out thousands of dollars for the drastically overpriced footwear during the two-night experiment.
This, in a nutshell, is the world.
It has all the trappings of value and worth and quality, but it is ultimately empty. If it wasn’t, the rich and famous and the powerful will be the happiest people on the planet, but they are not.
The world, the forbidden fruit, promises to give you so much, but ends up taking all you have.
John insists instead that we question the value of earthly pursuits, and calls us to recognise that they are built on false premises about reality. It is evil and deceptive, and it is not from God and serves to draw us away from Him, just as it banished Adam and Eve from the presence of God.
And so gaining the world is no gain at all. It is the biggest lie, the greatest scam that Satan has devised.
That’s the first reason we should not love the world. Because the world is not of God, it is evil. Opposed to God. Loving the world therefore represents a failure to love God.
The other reason we should not love the world is because the world is temporal. It is passing away.
17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Even if you gained the whole world, you do not get to keep any of it. It is doomed to pass away. Only the kingdom of God will last forever.
Most of the young adults today will have no idea, what this contraption is. It’s a mini-disc player.
When I was in secondary school, this was Avant Garde, this was state of the art technology.
Kids these days have no idea. We were using discmans to listen to music on the go. You put a CD, a compact disc, which could hold 15-20 songs max. It required a lot of batteries, it was discs were fragile, easily scratched, and the worst thing is that unless the discman encounters movement, your CD would skip, the song would stutter. And it’s pretty sensitive. Like normal traffic would affect it. So it’s not uncommon to see people on the bus, holding their discmans on their palms, to mitigate the movement of the bus, just so that they can listen to their songs without interruption.
The Minidisk player, solves all that. The Minidisks are sturdy and protected from scratches, it is compact and uses less batteries, each disk can hold up to 50 songs, and the best thing is that doesn’t skip, it is not affected by movement.
So confident was Sony in this Minidisk technology that it declared 1998 ‘The Year of the MiniDisc’ They also licensed MiniDisc technology to other manufacturers, leading to JVC, Panasonic, Pioneer and Sharp all producing their own MiniDisc players.
Now this is why you haven’t heard of a Minidisk. Because just three years later, in October 2001, Apple’s launched the first iPod. An mp3 player. And no one bothered with Minidisks again.
Now imagine yourself as an engineer in 1998. When the Minidisk was all the rage, and you had the benefit of hindsight, and two job offers came to you, Sony to work on its Minidisc team, an Apple to work on its IPod team. Which would you choose, if you had the benefit of hindsight.
You choose Apple right? That’s the one that made it big, that’s the technology that endured. The Minidisk would fade into oblivion very quickly. Apple is the more logical choice, it’s the smarter choice.
In the same way friends, obeying the will of God is the smarter choice than desiring the world. Even when the whole culture around us is screaming, “This the year of the World”, we know better. We can make the wiser choice.
We know this:
17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
The famous poem “Only One Life” by Charles T. Studd (1860–1931) captures John’s point well:
Two little lines I heard one day, Traveling along life’s busy way;Bringing conviction to my heart, And from my mind would not depart;Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes only one, Soon will its fleeting hours be done;Then, in “that day” my Lord to meet, And stand before His Judgment seat;Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, the still small voice, Gently pleads for a better choiceBidding me selfish aims to leave, And to God’s holy will to cleave;Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, a few brief years, Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;Each with its clays I must fulfill, living for self or in His will;Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
When this bright world would tempt me sore, When Satan would a victory score;When self would seek to have its way, Then help me Lord with joy to say;Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Oh let my love with fervor burn, And from the world now let me turn;Living for Thee, and Thee alone, Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Only one life, yes only one, Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;And when at last I’ll hear the call, I know I’ll say “’Twas worth it all”;Only one life, ’twill soon be past, Only what’s done for Christ will last.
Here’s the final sin to avoid.
DON’T LOVE THE WORLD
We sin when we are in love with the world.Only what is done for Christ will last.
John opens our passage today with these words
1 JOHN 2:1 1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
And when we listen to on to his words, about hating our brother and loving the world, perhaps we find in ourselves a load of sin, and feel in our hearts a weight of guilt and shame.
All this self-examination can so easily drive us to despair. What hope is there, who can save us from this body of death?
The apostle John is aware of this. So he reminds us.
1 JOHN 2:1 But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
Thanks be to God, for this gospel, this good news of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who calls us to walk in the light, to walk in love as he did, to live as children of our heavenly father as he did, and to not love the world, but to love the father instead, as he did.
But at the same time, advocates for us before the Father when we do not.
Jesus Christ, who calls us not to sin, but pays the penalty on our behalf when we do sin.
And not just for us, but for the sins of the world.
And on that note, I would like to address the non-Christians in our midst.
As human beings, we sin, we know that, we are not perfect.
And if there comes a judgement day, a day of reckoning, and you stand before your Maker account for your wrong doings, who will be your advocate on that day, Who will defend you, support you, and satisfy the demands of justice on account of your sins?
Christians have Jesus as our advocate, we rely on Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to bear the penalty of our sins, and earn us a confident righteousness before the Judge of all mankind. We have Jesus in our corner, we Jesus on our side?
Who do you have? Who will you lean on, who can you turn to, on that day?
Jesus death is sufficient for the sins of the world, that includes your sins. I urge you then, to turn to him and to trust in him, for the salvation of your souls.
For the world is passing away, and only the one who does will of the Father abides forever.
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