Know and Obey to Be Happy in Jesus

Is it possible to know God and to live like the Devil? Is it possible to truly know God and have no life change? Adrian Rogers answered these questions this way: "Study the Bible to know about God. Obey the Bible to really know God" (Adrianisms, 33). The apostle John would agree. He explained in 1 John that it is one thing to say you know God, but it is another to really know Him. To help us be "sure that we have come to know Him" (2:3), John provides a threefold test that he returns to again and again in this letter. We can put them in the form of three questions. First, do I believe the right things about Jesus? We may call this the theological test. Second, do I obey the commands of God? This is the moral test. Third, do I love others? This is the ethical test. John addressed the theological test in 1:5-2:2. Now he will address the moral test in 2:3-6 and the ethical test in 2:7-11. His goal is that you and I would live in the assurance of our salvation and thereby be happy in Jesus all the days of our lives.

Obey Christ's Commands and Enjoy the Assurance
of Salvation

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Obey Christ's Commands and Enjoy the Assurance
of Salvation

1 John 2:3-6

Chuck Colson (1931-2012) of Watergate and Prison Fellowship fame wrote a masterpiece entitled Loving God. In it he said the essence of the Christian life is obedience:

"But how do we love the Lord?" we ask. Jesus answered this in a discussion with His disciples: "If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15). Or, as the apostle John wrote later, "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments" (1 John 5:3). (Loving God, 40)

Dietrich Bonheoffer similarly states, "Only he who believes is obedient; only he who is obedient believes" (quoted in Colson, Loving God, 19). Both to love Him and to know Him is to obey Him. Knowing God and loving God are intimately wed ideas in 1 John (he will use the words more than 40 times each in this five-chapter letter), and both of them lead to obedience. To know God is to love God and to love God is to obey God. This obedience, John teaches us, reveals the genuineness of our faith (2:3), the authenticity of our confession (v. 4), the maturing of our love (v. 5), and our growth in Christlikeness (v. 6). For John—and it should be the same for us—there is a massive difference between merely saying and actually doing, between merely saying and truly knowing (1:6, 8,10; 2:4, 6,9). Matt Carter applies this truth in this way:

When I am participating in an interview with someone we're thinking about adding to our [church] staff ... I let others ask the detailed questions. I ask the candidate only one question. I ask him or her, "When was the last time the thought of the gospel made you weep?" If the person we're interviewing can't answer the question, I simply won't hire him or her. Why? Because I've realized there is a direct connection between a person's love for Jesus and that person's obedience to Him. (McCoy and Carter, The Real Win, 135)

What would your answer be? It is a really good question.

You Will Know That You Know Him (1 John 2:3-4)

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John saw the importance of the gospel's connection to obedience. He knew it was an important avenue for assurance of salvation. If you want to know day by day that you know Him, that you are saved, it is simple: look to His perfect advocacy and atoning work on your behalf (vv. 1-2) and keep His commands. The word "keeping" conveys the idea of guarding. We should guard God's commands as a precious treasure. And as we do, the treasure of our assurance of salvation is strengthened with it. Obedience is an important avenue of assurance. Because I know Him in all of His beauty, glory, and majesty, I delight in obeying Him. To obey Christ is not a burden. It is a blessing. It is my natural response to what He has done for me.

However, if we claim to know Him but do not guard His commands as precious (v. 4), we are liars (what we say) and the truth is not in us (who we are). We are spiritual deceivers, fakes. We claim to have something we really don't: a true and genuine relationship with God.

The new birth (cf. John 3) that results from fleeing to Jesus as our advocate and our atonement will place a new knowledge in our minds and a new desire and passion in our hearts to obey Him. That desire to obey and our decision to obey give us a certainty that we know Him.

You Will Know His Love Perfectly (1 John 2:5)

Keeping the commands of God is not a condition of knowing God, but it is a clear sign and indication that we do know God. It is a life of true worship that delights in the commands of God for no other reason than it delights in the God who gives those commands. John says, "But whoever keeps [as a habit and pattern of life] His word [His commands], truly in him the love of God is perfected." This verse is set in contrast to verse 4, and it advances the argument John is making. It also ties together the vital relationship of knowing God, loving God, and obeying God. This is a powerful triad, to say the least.

The phrase "love of God" is ambiguous and open to various understandings. It could mean God's love for us, our love for God, God's kind of love, or simply the love of God in a general sense. I believe the context here indicates it is our love for God that is in view. As we consistently obey God, carefully guarding His Word, our love for God grows and is brought to maturity and completion. It reaches a marked-out-in-advance goal and is brought to perfection (cf. 4:12, 17, 18). In keeping 29and obeying His Word, my love for Jesus grows, matures, and is brought to its intended goal. And here is the beauty of the whole thing: the more I know Him the more I love Him, and the more I love Him the more I know Him. The same thing happens in a godly marriage. It should be that the more a husband and wife grow to know one another, the more they love one another. And the more love they share with each other, the more they will desire to know each other.

There is a tradition that on one occasion the apostle John, near the end of his life, was brought to the church on a pallet. All he said to the believing community was, "Love one another." When he was asked why that was all he had to say, he responded, "Because it is enough." The perfecting of our love life is an additional avenue "that we are in Him"—that we belong to Jesus and that Jesus belongs to us.

You Will Know You Are Abiding in Christ (1 John 2:6)

When God saved us He did not save us simply to take us to heaven. He saved us that we might be conformed to His perfect image—that we might become like Jesus (Rom 8:29; 1 John 3:2). He saved us that we might "walk just as He walked."

Verse 6 is the second "the one who says" statement in this section (cf. vv. 4, 9). Here John speaks of our remaining, or abiding, in Him. Jesus said a lot about this in John 15. So will John. He will use this word 23 times in this epistle (Gk meno, translated "remain" in HCSB). Like obeying Jesus and loving Jesus, abiding in Christ is the natural outgrowth of knowing Him. The idea is one of continuing in Jesus.

John says we have both a statement to prove and a Savior to imitate. And the word "should" conveys a moral obligation for our walk to match our talk. To truly abide in Christ means I will live (walk) like Christ. This theme is not unique to 1 John but is repeated several times in the New Testament.

Like Father, like Son. Like Savior, like saint. Christ's life becomes my life, my example, my goal, and my pattern. And we must note that it is abiding in Him that enables me to live like Him. I don't do it in my strength. I do it in His! I don't have to be like Him to be assured, I want to be like Him and am assured. John Stott says, "We cannot claim to abide in Him unless we are like Him" (Stott, The Letters of John, 97). But as we abide in Him we will be like Him because we will know Him.

Love One Another and Walk in the Light of Salvation

Love One Another and Walk in the Light of Salvation

1 John 2:7-11

John is good at simplifying the Christian life. Basically he says to know Jesus, obey God, and love others. Briefly introduced in verse 5, John will now give more intense attention to the theme of our love life. In verse 5 it was our love for God that concerned the apostle. Now in verses 7-11 he must address urgently our love for others.

John begins with an affirmation of his love for those to whom he is writing. He calls them "dear friends" or "beloved." It is the Greek word agapetoi, and John will use it six times in this letter (2:7; 3:2, 21; 4:1, 7,11). It is a term of endearment, of heartfelt love and concern. It usually serves John well as he begins a new thought. In this instance, though, it allows him to continue and expand on the idea of God's commands. Here he will narrow his focus to one specific command: the command to love. Interestingly, though the idea of love is clearly the theme of this section, the word itself only appears in verse 10.

This section raises the question: Does John believe a right love for God (v. 5) is absolutely essential for a right love toward our brothers (v. 10)? I believe the answer is a resounding Yes! Indeed the two are inseparable.

God's Love Has Been with Us Since Conversion (1 John 2:7)

I believe the Gospel of John was written before the letters of John and that the letters of John assume a knowledge of the Gospel of John. Here it is John 13:34-35 that John assumes his audience knows. In that passage Jesus said, "I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know31 that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." This being the case, John can say the command to love one another is not new; rather, it is old. It is something you have had from the beginning, the beginning of your Christian experience as a follower of Jesus. Further, you know of this command's ancient root in Leviticus 19:18, what Jesus called the second great command. There Moses wrote, "Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself, I am Yahweh." Speaking about 1 John 2:7, John Piper says,

This [verse] is a very remarkable rebuke to typical gospel preaching and witnessing today. For John, the commandment of love belongs to what people should hear from the beginning! It is not an optional stage two in Christian growth.... The gospel contains not only the commandment to trust Jesus, but also the commandment, in the power of that trust, to be changed into a loving person. ("The One Who Lives In Light")

God's Love Is Seen Most Truly in Jesus and His Followers (1 John 2:8)

Some cynics might argue that the apostle John leaves himself open to the charge of senility in verse 8. After all, in verse 7 he says, "I am not writing you a new command but an old command." Now in verse 8 he says, "Yet I am writing you a new command." Well, which is it? The answer is, "It is both." I think the opening phrase as translated by the ESV is helpful when it says, "At the same time." This old, old command goes all the way back to Moses, but it took on a new character with the coming of Jesus. This is his point. And the newness is threefold. First, it is new and true in Jesus. Second, it is true and new in us, those who "walk just as He walked" (v. 6). Third, it is true and new in us because "the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining" (cf. John 1:5, 9).

In Christ the command to love one another is strengthened, deepened, expanded, and given a depth of meaning and understanding never seen before His coming in the incarnation. And now that same kind of supernatural love is being seen and experienced in those who love Him and abide in Him. But there's more! Perfect love as revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has dealt a death blow 32to darkness. Darkness is on the run and it cannot outrun the light. In fact the darkness is already departing and the true light already shines! The light of the world (John 8:12) has come. The King of light and love is already reigning, and the fullness and consummation of that reign is just around the corner. How we love one another gives evidence of all of this.

Love is not new. It is as old as God (1 John 4:8) and rooted in the law. Yet it is new to us in conversion and new in its depth in Jesus. It is new in experience, emphasis, expression, and endurance. It is old as the sun and new as the dawn.

God's Love Exposes the Darkness of Hatred (1 John 2:9-11)

John utilizes his third "the one who says" statement, and he does so to draw the strongest possible contrast between those who are in the light and those who are in the darkness, between those who love and those who hate, between those who are the children of God and those who are the children of the Devil (3:10). Verse 9 essentially says, "If you say you are in the light experiencing the life of God, yet you continually hate your brother, only one conclusion can be drawn: You are still in darkness, the realm of spiritual death and moral corruption, evil and wickedness. You still belong to the Devil." Verse 10 provides the contrast: "If you are consistently loving your brother, you continually abide in light and give evidence that you have the life of God in you." Further, there is no cause for stumbling (Gk, scandalon) or offense for the one who abides in the realm of light. He truly is walking as Jesus walked (v. 6). The world of light and love always go together.

Verse 11 returns to those who are in darkness: If you continually hate your brother, four things are true for you: First, you are in the darkness (spiritual death). Second, you walk (live) in darkness. Third, you do not know where you are going. And fourth, you are blind. In the darkness of spiritual death there is the absence of love and the absence of God in our lives. And tragically, we don't even see it, having lived so long in the darkness. We are like blind men in a dark room who have no idea where they are or where they are going. It is a true tragedy.

Conclusion

Conclusion

There is an old hymn titled "Trust and Obey" with text by John H. Sammis. The first verse and refrain read,

33When we walk with the Lord

in the light of His Word,

what a glory He sheds on our way!

While we do His good will,

He abides with us still,

and with all who will trust and obey.

Trust and obey,

for there's no other way

to be happy in Jesus,

but to trust and obey.

I believe the apostle John would have liked this song. I believe he would have agreed with its message. You see, to trust Him, you must first know Him—know Him as the One who has been from the beginning; know Him as the One who is the Word of life and the eternal life; know Him as the Son of the Father in whom there in no darkness at all; know Him as the cleanser and forgiver of sins; know Him as your advocate and atonement. To know Him is to trust Him, and to trust Him is to obey Him. And when you do, you will experience a happiness in Jesus that will indeed be a glory that He will shed on your way.

Reflect and Discuss

Reflect and Discuss

1. How would you explain to your friends that obedience, as the Bible describes it, is not an oppressive idea?
2. What is the relationship between obedience and assurance for the Christian? What assurances come with a life of obedience?
3. Why does truly knowing God lead to obedience to His commands?
4. How can God be loving if He commands obedience from His people?
5. What does it mean to abide or remain in Christ? What other passages of Scripture would you use to shed light on this idea?
6. Is it possible to rightly love others without a true love for God? How does John shed light on this question?
7. How is John's command to love one another both old and new? How does this give weight to John's argument?
8. What are some examples of love that you see throughout the Scriptures? How is Jesus the perfect example of love for one another?
9. 34Why is hatred for a brother contrary to love for God? What does such hatred expose about our hearts?
10. How can you live out love for others in such a way that reveals your knowledge of and love for God?