“How do I know that I am being obedient to the commands and demands of Jesus? What does that look like?”

This week we are looking at a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 John. Yesterday, in 1 John 2:3-5, we discovered a timeless truth when it comes to connecting in true community in that our obedience to God results in true community with God and others as we grow in our love for God and others.  We discovered the timeless reality that the person who has a genuine and authentic relationship with God will persist in obeying the commands and demands of Jesus.

However, the person who claims to have close community with God while living a life that is in disobedience to the commands and demands of Jesus is lying to themselves and others. And the person who claims to have close community with God while living a life that is in disobedience to the commands and demands of Jesus is misleading themselves in way that leads them astray from God and reveals that reality that the truth of God that was communicated to us by Jesus is not in them. By contrast, the person who claims to have close community with God and lives a life that persists in pursuing a life of obedience to the commands and demands of Jesus will experience a growing love for Jesus and others that will grow to perfection and maturity.

Now a natural question that could arise here is “How do I know that I am being obedient to the commands and demands of Jesus? What does that look like?”

If that question is running through your mind, I just want to let you know that you are asking a great question. And as John continues this next section of his letter, we see John provide the answer to that question. So let's discover the answer to that question together, beginning in the second half of verse 5-6:

By this we know that we are in Him: ⁶ the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

Now to fully understand what John is communicating here, we first need to understand what John means when he uses the phrase “abide in Him”. The word abide literally means to not leave a certain realm or sphere. So when John uses the phrase “abides in Him”, this is the idea of remaining in connection with God as one is mystically and spiritually united in Christ as a follower of Jesus.

You see, when God the Father looks at us as followers of Jesus, He does not simply see us. Instead, He sees us in Christ. Right now, in a mystical and spiritual way, God the Father sees you as a follower of Jesus, in Christ, in Heaven. As a result of God's activity through Jesus that results in my relationship with Jesus, God see me in Christ. As followers of Jesus we are part of the church, which is the body of Christ here on earth. But even now, we are mystically and spiritually a part of the body of Christ in Heaven.

And as followers of Jesus we remain connected to God as we live in obedience to the message and teaching of Jesus as a result of being mystically and spiritually connected with Jesus. John’s point is that we know that we are mystically and spiritually connected with Jesus by whether or not we live a life that looks like Jesus. John’s point is that that the person who remains connected with God as they are mystically and spiritually united with Jesus will demonstrate a persistent obedience to the teachings of Jesus and a life that is being transformed from a life marked by selfishness and rebellion to a life marked by Christ-likeness and selfless love.

John’s point is that the person who claims to remain connected to God is to be under obligation to conduct their day to day life in a way that looks like Jesus as they strive to persist in obeying the commands and demands of Jesus. We see John reinforce this reality with what he writes next. So let’s look together at what John writes nest in verse 7-8:

 Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. ⁸ On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.

Here we see John use a term of endearment to remind the members of the church of Ephesus how he felt about them as he reminded them about what he had previously communicated to them. You see, John wanted the members of the church at Ephesus to clearly understand that he was not making new demands upon them in the form of a new command. John was not calling the members of the church to obey something new.

Instead John was reminding the members of the church that they had an obligation to follow the message and teaching of Jesus that they had learned from the beginning. When John refers to the beginning here, he is referring to the first time that the members of the church had heard the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. This is John’s way of saying that he is not imposing a new command or demand on the readers of this letter, but only reminding them and pointing them to what they have known and heard from the very beginning of their new life as followers of Jesus.

However, on the other hand, as John point out in verse 8, this command was new in the sense that it was true “in Him and in you”. But what does that even mean? John’s point here is that the commands and demands of Jesus find its true expression through the life of Jesus and through the life of followers of Jesus as they remain connected to God as they are mystically and spiritually united with Jesus. In other words, what it looks like to live a life of obedience to the commands and demands of Jesus is revealed by the life of Jesus and the life of followers of Jesus as they faithfully live in obedience to the commands of Jesus in close connection with Jesus.

John then explained that the reason that this is the case is due to the fact that “the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining”. As we discovered earlier in this series, darkness refers to a moral and spiritual darkness caused by those that are hostile to God and place themselves in opposition to God. When John uses the phrase passing away, this phrase literally means to go out of existence. John’s point is that the moral and spiritual darkness that is caused by those who stand in opposition to God and His kingdom is being brought to a place of extinction.

This is the case because, as John points out, the true light is already shining. When John uses the word light, he is painting an image of the nature of God that illumines the souls of humanity. As we talked about earlier in this series, John uses this imagery to reveal the reality that there is a Creator God who is light and who is without flaw or fault and there is creation that was covered in darkness as a result of the selfishness and rebellion of humanity.

John here is painting a word picture of the world as in the darkness of night, but the first rays of the dawning of the sun have begun to rise. This word picture of the sunrise in the morning is designed to remind the readers of his letter throughout history that the light and the love of the kingdom of Heaven have begun to break through the darkness of a world that had been covered in selfishness and rebellion through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the life of followers of Jesus who persist in living a life of obedience to the message and teaching of Jesus. 

And as John continues his letter, we see John focus on another claim that those who had left the church and were attempting to get others to leave the church were making. We will look at that claim Friday…