1 John 2:7-17 | The Abiding Commandment in a Changing World
So what is love? If you’re a child of the 60’s, you may remember the Beatles’ song “All You Need Is Love.” Well, that’s great, but what is it?
Fast forward to the 80’s, and some of you from my generation may remember the smash hit by Foreigner, where lead singer Lou Graham belted out that classic rock anthem. “I wanna know what love is!”
Moving ahead to the 90’s, some of you know I was a disc jockey for a pop radio station, and for that reason, it can be very hard for me to get certain tunes out of my head because I’d play the same songs over and over and over again, so every time I hear the question “What is love?”
Inevitably, a dance song that I had to play quite a bit goes racing through my head with those very deeply profound lyrics, “What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. No more.” I know it’s gripping, but even that song of rich profundity couldn’t answer the question.
When you throw in messages from the media, romance movies, and world religions, we get a vast spectrum of definitions and descriptions of love.
Love is a word that is very elastic in our context to the degree that it loses its weight and meaning. We say “I love ice cream, " and we also say “I love my wife.” We all agree that love is good and important, but we all have different ideas on what exactly it is.
Today, we continue our journey through 1 John, which John wrote to a culture like ours. There was a lot of confusion about love. Interestingly, John is often called the “apostle of love,” and in our passage, he helps us understand what love is and why it’s so important, even critically important.
Because what you love reveals who you belong to, that’s essentially what John is telling us here.
Now John was writing to a church that was struggling with knowing who they really belonged to, whether they belonged to God. Were they really Christians? How could they know?
Their faith had been shaken by false teachers who promoted an early form of the philosophy called Gnosticism. They believed that Christianity, as originally taught by people like John, needed an upgrade, like Christianity 2.0, with new teachings and new ways to be a Christian that no one had ever heard of before.
They said you could be a Christian and know God, and it didn’t matter how you lived. As long as you embraced their secret teachings, then you knew God, you were one of the divine insiders, and you were good.
And this caused a split in the church, and the false teachers left in frustration. And those remaining were shaken up, and it’s understandable. When these respected teachers and church leaders write you off, cast you aside, and just leave, taking whatever followers they had with them.
And John is trying to help them pick up the pieces and offer encouragement, comfort, and hope as they clean up the mess left by the false teachers, including the confusion about what it even means to be a Christian.
And so John takes them back to the basics of what it really means to be a Christian. A few weeks ago, we looked at the book's introduction, where he reminds us of the fundamentals of the faith. Last time we learned that,
Christians embrace the real Jesus (1:1-4)
Christians walk in the light (1:5-7, 2:3-6)
Christians are honest about their sin (1:8-10)
Christians rest their hope solely in Christ alone (2:1-2)
But, there’s another aspect of genuine Christianity that John takes us to now, and it’s so huge that if you don’t have it, you’re not a Christian.
And it all has to do with love.
Now, today’s whole passage can easily be divided into three sections that we’ll take one at a time, building on what he’s already told us previously. John now raises three implicit questions, and he will show us that being a Christian means answering three specific questions in a certain way.
Whom do you love? (The family)
We’re not talking about flesh-and-blood family, but about a Christian’s spiritual family. When someone becomes a Christian, they aren’t just getting rescued from Hell. There is a profound spiritual union that believers enter into with other believers. So deep that the Bible speaks of Christians in familial terms, we’re adopted into a household with God as our Father and believers as brothers and sisters. With relationships shaped by family love, and so John says
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.
1 John 2:7
John reminds his readers that he’s not springing something new on them, and why?
Because the Gnostics were all about new and novel teaching. “Yes, I know you’ve been taught some things about the faith from those old apostles. But we have a NEW revelation. a fresh word from God, and to be really connected to the divine, you need to follow us.”
I heard one teacher say, "In theology, that which is new is not likely true.” That’s a good axiom to live by.
And John turns to his church and says, “Unlike the false teachers, I’m not giving you anything new. You’ve heard this from the very beginning of your Christian experience, but even then, it wasn’t new. The call to love goes back thousands of years to the earliest dealings of God with His people.
Where God says to ancient Israel,
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
Leviticus 19:18
The call to love is an old command, but then John says,
At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you.
1 John 2:8
Now, how can an old command be new? Well, John is taking his cue from Jesus, where Jesus does something that only the very lowest of servants would do. He gets on His knees and washes the feet of His disciples, and He says to them,
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
John 13:34
Now the call to love wasn’t new. What was new was the standard of love. From the very beginning, we’ve been told to love one another as we love ourselves. But Jesus pushes further, no longer is the standard to love as you love yourself, but to love as HE loves! And how does He love? He serves them by washing their feet, which is remarkable in itself.
But it points to an even greater act of love, in which He would suffer and die on a cross for their sins! Jesus joyfully served in such a way to benefit and bless His people even at great expense and cost to Himself. You could call that a cruciform love in the shape of a cross.
And it is in THAT context that Jesus tells His disciples, “You do the same. Love one another as I have loved you.”
And so the old command has new life breathed into it.
And we discover that biblical love is moving in service towards another in a way that will bless and benefit them even at great cost and expense to oneself.
Now, John specifically speaks of your love not for people in general, but for the family of God, fellow Christians in the church.
Now, of course, Christians are to love everyone, but the Bible places particular emphasis on how believers treat one another in the context of a local church.
So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Galatians 6:10
And there are many other verses like this.
Now this pushes back against a common idea where people say, “Well, I love Jesus, but I hate the church.
But the Bible knows nothing of a believer who stiff arms the local church and forever keeps it at bay, disinterested in loving, serving, and blessing fellow Christians. In fact, John says,
Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
1 John 2:9
The false teachers claimed to be enlightened to know God, and yet in reality, they hated the brothers.
Friends, it’s possible to sound very spiritual, to act religious, to even be a teacher in the church, and yet still be in darkness, and the evidence of that is a lack of love for the Church for God’s people.
Keep that in mind when evaluating a spiritual leader. Don’t be overly impressed with how great a speaker they are and how spiritual they sound. Look at their love and specifically their attitude towards God’s Church. Do they love the people of God, or do they have hatred?
Now, hatred does not necessarily mean seething, murderous rage.
In Luke 6, Jesus says, "Blessed are you when people hate you." And then Jesus defines what hatred looks like, he says, when they revile you and spurn your name as evil, or when they exclude you. So yes, hatred can be something as extreme as murderous rage, but it can also be as mild as name-calling and as subtle as exclusion, just shunning and rejecting someone.
And the false teachers in Ephesus showed the ultimate hatred for God’s people by totally separating themselves from ALL Christians in the church, and it’s not that they just relocated to 2nd Baptist Church of Ephesus down the road. There was no other church; they totally withdrew from the family of God.
Now that should really challenge us who ARE real Christians, God doesn’t call us to live out some sort of private, isolated faith detached from the church. And when I say church, I’m not so much talking institution as I’m talking about people. The people of God.
Friend, Jesus doesn’t simply say come unto me, He says welcome to my family, here are your brothers, here are your sisters. Weak, sinful, quirky, awkward, growing… just like you. Jesus has committed himself to them; you do likewise. If you love him, you’ll strive to love His family.
And can I just confess this is not always an easy thing? It can be hard and messy because we’re all sinners and all different. We’re a family, but somewhat dysfunctional at times. We Christians can be a weird group, amen?
We have different ideas about parenting and cultural engagement. When it comes to hygiene, some of us are really hard to have conversations with, yet God has put us all together and called us to learn how to do life together as a family.
That’s hard. And it’s always been the plan. In the 1st Century, God did the craziest thing possible: He united Jews and Gentiles together in local congregations. The animosity between them was off the charts. They had different cultures, different ways of living, different languages, different politics, even different foods, and God starts saving Jews and Gentiles and putting them together in the same church. That’s fun.
And the apostle Paul, writing to the church of Ephesus, the same church that John is writing to, tells them that,
For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
Ephesians 2:14–16
And then he says,
I therefore urge you to walk with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:1–3
And then he says,
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
Ephesians 4:32-5:2
Again, this isn’t easy. Here at Main Street, we are a hodgepodge of people with different backgrounds, preferences, interests, different theological traditions, and yes, even different politics, and yet here we are together. Our calling is to love one another in spite of our differences. That’s what Christians do because we’re family.
Now, if I were to be honest, the call to love is challenging, not so much because of other people but because of the sin and selfishness in my own heart. Sometimes I come to church wanting to be comfortable and served, rather than coming with a mission to comfort and serve you.
I remember once in a church, not this one, but a prior one, there was a brother who was very challenging to talk to. He was needy and awkward, not a great conversationalist. He actually did have bad hygiene. He was lonely. Can I confess to you that there were times after church when I pretended I didn’t see him because I didn’t want the hassle of giving him a few minutes of my time and attention to serve and bless him.
Because I wanted to engage with friends who made me feel good and comfortable, I was more interested in getting than giving. I was excluding him. Remember, Jesus said that’s a form of hatred. I had to repent of that.
Friends, we all struggle with these things. John knows this. He’s not expecting perfection. In verse 8, John writes,
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.
1 John 2:8
John tells his audience that this new commandment is true in Jesus and in you. This is remarkable because John knows that his audience still sins and isn’t perfect, but even among flawed Christians, John is still seeing and expecting to see something of that Christlike love evident in them because “the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
In other words, Christ has come. The new realities of the kingdom have come with Him. A new age is dawning. While the kingdom in its fullness has not yet arrived in the world or in the hearts of God’s people, it’s here, it’s advancing, and the darkness is passing away, and that can be seen as Jesus’ people are slowly, bit by bit, learning to love, learning to die to ourselves and our preferences to increasingly find joy in blessing others with our acts of love and service to them, even if it might cost us something.
The true light is already shining, but may it shine even more.
And so, as Christians, knowing we’re not perfect, we want to evaluate our spiritual maturity and progress not by how much of the Bible we know or how many ministries we serve in the church; those things are great, but that’s not the main mark of maturity.
The main mark is our love for God’s people.
Now, I can’t give you a comprehensive list of what love might look like for you. I’m trusting the Holy Spirit will challenge you in this area as He sees fit, but some examples might include:
Engaging with another Christian you don’t know well after the church service.
Providing a meal for a single mom.
Offering to babysit for a couple so they can go on a date night.
Regularly praying for members of this church.
Inviting someone new to the church to your home for supper or to your GC
Forgiving someone who has offended you
Seeking forgiveness from someone you’ve offended
Rejoicing with someone who is rejoicing
Weeping with another who weeps
And one that may surprise you
Lovingly confronting someone in their sin.
Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:1–2
To bear one another’s burdens, including the burden of their own sin, is a means of fulfilling Christ’s law of love.
To live in such a way as to love the family of God is a sign that we are God’s people.
In the very next chapter, John writes that..
We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.
1 John 3:14
But it’s not just a sign to us, it’s a sign to the unbelieving world. Jesus says,
By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
John 13:35
Now, to have that cruciform love requires something more powerful than our own wills and strength; it requires supernatural, Holy Spirit empowerment. The fruit of the Spirit is love, Paul writes in Galatians 5, so we can know that God is more than ready to help us. He has unlimited resources to help us grow here, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining
So, who do you love? For the Christian, the answer is “the family.”
But a Christian is not defined solely by what he loves, so John raises another question:
What do you not love? (The world)
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.
1 John 2:15
Now, what does John mean by not loving the world or the things in the world? He can’t mean not loving people. Again, the Bible calls us to love everyone.
Additionally, there are things in this world that are good. There’s good food and sunrises, family and music, good books and mountain hikes, A 3-point basket right at the buzzer, the list goes on and on. But some people have taken John’s sentiments to mean that we’re to withdraw from the world and its good things in it, abstaining from enjoying creation like monks. But the Bible pushes back against that.
Paul tells us that
God richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
1 Timothy 6:17
And
Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:4–5
There are many good things in the world that God wants us to enjoy.
When John talks about “the world,” he’s not thinking of people or good things, but of a system of thought and an attitude that are pervasive in sinful man, rejecting the will and ways of God while embracing things that oppose Him.
John describes worldliness manifesting in three ways.
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.
1 John 2:16
The desires of the flesh have to do with bodily cravings that have gotten perverted or out of control. It could refer to sex or a craving for food, or comfort things that, in their proper place, are actually good gifts designed by God to be fulfilled in specific ways.
But the Bible teaches us that even good gifts can become bad when used contrary to God’s will, and those things begin to rule our hearts and control us, leading us to care more about satisfying our cravings than obeying God and loving others.
Its desires run wild, Paul says, the works of the flesh are evident.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.
Galatians 5:19–21
Now, if the desires of the flesh have to do with lusts from within, the desires of the eyes speak to temptations from the outside, things placed before us that appear attractive and beautiful, and we covet those things, and they begin to intersect with sinful desires inside of us and lead us away from God.
Like Eve beholding the forbidden fruit in the garden, it was a delight to the eyes, so how could this be a bad thing? Or Achan in the book of Joshua, who saw the expensive piece of clothing, coveted it, and stole it. Or King David, who saw the beauty of Bathsheba, which aroused evil desires in his heart and led him down a path to adultery.
The desire of the eyes isn’t about the appropriate enjoyment of beauty in God’s way; it’s instead being so entranced by something to the point where you become convinced in the moment that whatever God says doesn’t matter anymore, and you let what you behold rule your heart instead of God.
And then John warns about the pride of life. This is about what you have and can achieve in life, and the status, prominence, security, and self-sufficiency that come with that: bigger houses, bigger bank accounts, more clicks and followers on your social media feed. For some pastors, it’s bigger congregations and buildings. It can be anything.
That we no longer see as good gifts from God to be used for His glory, but things that puff up our ego, to the point where we don’t feel like we need God much anymore.
And the world is designed to stir up the desires of the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life. These temptations are hitting us from all kinds of angles, aren’t they?
Through music, movies, TV commercials, through your social media feed, I’m not saying all of that is all bad, but we have to be honest that a lot of content coming at us every day is working overtime to train our hearts and appetites to crave worldliness, to diminish our thirst for God, to convince us that sin is normal and righteousness is strange.
And sometimes we take in all these messages without any thoughtful, critical evaluation; we just lap them up, and as we do, we should not be shocked when, one day, we find ourselves acting just like the world.
That’s why Solomon warns you to
Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
Proverbs 4:23
Depending on what they are, the things we allow into our hearts can either lead us to love and enjoy God more or stir up worldly desires and passions.
And again, John is not saying Christians are perfect here. John said in the prior chapter that if you claim you aren’t sinning anymore, you’re lying. John knows you’re going to struggle here. But while unbelievers totally give themselves over to the world, genuine Christians strive to pursue a different course, and when they fall, they confess their sins, trust in God’s forgiveness, get back up, and keep moving forward.
But John knows the temptation to worldliness is powerful for all Christians. Sometimes it seems like sin is irresistible, even worth it, and that’s why John says in verse 17, "Don’t believe the promises of sin.” He says
The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 2:17
There’s no future of worldliness, no lasting joy. There’s futility and disappointment. In the moment of temptation, sin seems great, life-giving, and what you need, but sin can never deliver on what it promises. We know this because we’ve all sinned MANY times, and it always leaves us emptier, less satisfied than ever, and wanting more.
And to totally give ourselves over to worldliness will eventually lead to misery, ruin, instability, and destruction.
Contrast that with the blessed man in Psalm 1, who forsakes worldliness in exchange for the pursuit of God. We’re told that this man.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
Psalm 1:3
When we resist the allurements of the world, there is a fruitfulness and quality of life that come with refreshment, enjoyment, and stability. Received in part now, and coming to full bloom in eternity. Because the one who does the will of God abides forever.
Well, we’ve looked at the first and last part of John’s section, but I’ve deliberately saved this interesting middle portion for last because I think it’s the climactic center of this section.
Because while yes “whom do you love?” And “what do you not love?” and “what do you love?” are very important questions. John reminds us that our ultimate hope doesn’t lie in the answer to those questions; it lies in another question.
Who loves you? (God)
John says lots of hard things in his book, doesn’t he? He draws stark lines between who is a Christian and who isn’t. Christians walk in the light. Christians love other Christians. Christians reject worldliness
But John, with tender pastoral sensitivity, pauses because he knows there will be some in the church with a tender consciousness who are very aware that they struggle to love, to walk in the light, and sometimes they ARE worldly. and they’re concerned about that
And John takes a moment to remind us that our ultimate security lies not in how well we love others or how faithful we are to God, but in how faithful He is to us.
I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake.
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.
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.
1 John 2:12-14
In this middle section, John addresses little children, fathers, and young men. Not literal children, fathers, or young men, but Christians are at different phases of their spiritual journey, and, of course, this applies to women in Christ as well.
And while John says different things to different groups, they’re similar and really applicable to all believers. And here’s the bottom line of what John wants us to know:
He wants us to know that if we have come to trust in Christ, then we really do know God. He wants us to have confidence that we have overcome the evil one, that’s the devil.
Through our trust in Jesus, we are free from the power of Satan, and we can continue to have victory over him. In verse 14, he says, "Because you are strong and the word of God abides in you." In other words, Christians can defeat the devil and his temptations not through our own strength but through the power of God’s Word, which is the scriptures. Take in God’s word, learn it, meditate on it, and trust it, and we will have all the resources we need to resist temptation and conquer our spiritual enemy.
And above all else, John wants the Ephesian church and the Main Street Church to know that our sins are forgiven!
This is important because it can be easy to read a book like 1 John and despair, feeling like you can’t live up to what he is teaching.
And the fact is, you never perfectly live up to what he is teaching, and John knows this; that’s why he wrote earlier .
I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins
1 John 2:1–2
John’s whole point in this book is not to shake your faith but to strengthen it and give you hope and assurance. Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins is your greatest hope and comfort.
And it’s your great motivation to live for God, because think of it this way: if you feel like you’re condemned and not forgiven, and there’s nothing you can ever do to receive favor from God, then what’s the point of it all? That’s a life of despair.
But if you know you’re forgiven by God, that you still have His love and favor even when you fail, oh what great encouragement and motivation that is to get back up and keep pursuing God.
And so John gives us the answer to that age-old question: what love is?
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:10
And so, truly, for the Christian, the most important question is not who YOU love or don’t love, but who loves YOU? John tells us who.
If you are in Christ, He is your Father, you are His child, and that will never change.
The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful.
2 Timothy 2:11–13
Christian family, rest in the sure hope of His love today.
I want to invite the worship team back and encourage you to reflect on the things John has taught us.
Genuine Christians love the family. In what ways might God be calling you out of your comfort zone to love people in this church in new and fresh ways?
Consider also that in your pursuit of loving others, God also calls you not to love the world. Are there areas in your life activities, things you allow into your mind and heart, that are actually training your affections away from loving God? Are there thoughts and attitudes we need to repent of and change?
But in the midst of it all, I want you to remember that glorious middle section of our text today, that assurance John gives us that ultimately your hope must rest not in your love for God but in His love for you. If you are trusting Jesus, know that you are forgiven. You know God. You have overcome the evil one, and you have the strength to move forward in loving Him and loving others.
That’s a word also to anyone here who is NOT a Christian: don’t hear this message and walk away thinking “I don’t love God or others enough, or that I need to try harder and do better.” That’s not the right takeaway. Instead, you must confess your sin, admit before God that, no matter how hard you try, you won’t measure up.
And then you need to trust that Jesus Christ paid for your sin of lovelessness because He loved you so much, and if you would but turn from going your own way, doing your own thing, and seek to follow His way, He will cleanse you of all unrighteousness and welcome you into this family. And then He will help you to love Him and others. If you want to know more about that, come and see me after the service, or any Christian here. Now, spend a moment reflecting and responding in your heart to what we have heard, and continue in worship.
