Our obedience to God results in true community with God and others as we grow in our love for God and others...

At the church where I serve we are in the middle of a sermon series entitled Connect. During this series, we are looking at a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of 1 John. During this series, we are discovering the components that make for true connection and community. During this series, we are discovering the landmines and roadblocks that keep us from true connection and community. And as we go through this series, our hope and our prayer is that God would move by the power of the Holy Spirit in our heads, hearts, and hands, in a way that moves us to the place where we can experience the connection and community with God and one another that we were created and designed to experience.  

We launched into this series by looking at the opening section of the book of 1 John, where we discovered discover the timeless truth that we experience true community with others as we experience true community with God. Last week, we looked at 1 John 1:8-2:2, where we discovered that we experience true community with God and others as we confess our selfishness and rebellion to God and others.

This week I would like for us to pick up where we left off last week. And as we jump into the next section of this letter that has been preserved and recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of John, we will see John reveal for us another timeless truth when it comes to how we can experience the connection and community with God and one another that we were created and designed to experience. So let’s jump into the next section of this letter together, beginning in 1 John 2:3-5a:

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. ⁴ The one who says, "I have come to know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; ⁵ but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.

John begins this section of his letter by addressing an issue that had arisen as a result of some people who had left the church at Ephesus and were trying to influence others to leave the church at Ephesus. You see, there were some people who had attended the church at one time, but had left the church, who were claiming that you could have close connection with God while living their day to day lives in a way that is marked by moral and spiritual darkness as a result of selfishness and rebellion against God. There were some people who had attend the church at one time, but had left the church, who were proclaiming that they were not guilty of selfishly rebelling against God and others. 

After addressing these first two claims in the opening two sections of his letter, John focuses on a third claim that those who had left the church and were attempting to get others to leave the church were making. And that claim was that one could have close connection with God while living a life that was in disobedience to the commands and demands of God. John proclaimed to the readers of his letter that we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.

Now when John uses the word know here, this word conveys the sense of having a past experience that has ongoing and continuing results. John is talking about a person who has entered into a relationship with God that is an ongoing reality in their lives.

John is answering the question “How do I know that I have a genuine and authentic relationship with God?” In addition, when John uses the word keep here, this word literally means to persist in obedience. The point that John wanted to drive home to the readers of his letter throughout history is that the person who has a genuine and authentic relationship with God will persist in obeying the commands and demands of Jesus that were contained in the message and teaching of Jesus.

John then contrasted his claim that the person who has a genuine and authentic relationship with God will persist in obeying the commands and demands of Jesus with the claims of those who left the church at Ephesus. First, John states that the person who claimed that one could have close connection with God while living a life that was in disobedience to the commands and demands of Jesus was a liar.

That person was a liar because Jesus Himself made it abundantly clear that the person who was in close connection with Him would keep His commands. We see this reality in a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of John. Here is what Jesus Himself said about this issue of obedience in John 15:10:

"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

You see, Jesus made it unmistakably clear that a close connection with Him results from a life of obedience to Him. However, the person who lives a life in disobedience to the commands and demands of Jesus will not have a close connection and relationship with Jesus. And to say otherwise is a big, fat lie. Second, John states that, for the person who claimed that one could have close connection with God while living a life that was in disobedience to the commands and demands of Jesus, the truth is not in him.

As we discovered earlier in this series, when John refers to the truth here, he is referring to the message and teaching of Jesus that forms the content of the Christian faith. So if John was communicating this statement in the language that we use in our culture today, this statement would sound something like this: If we say that we can have close connection with God while living a life that is in disobedience to the commands and demands of Jesus, we are misleading ourselves in way that leads us astray from God and reveals that reality that the truth of God that was communicated to us by Jesus is not in us.

However, for the person who persists in obeying the commands and demands of Jesus, John states that in him the love of God has truly been perfected. What is so interesting in that the word perfected, in the language that this letter was originally written in, literally means to overcome or replace an imperfect state by one that is perfect and free from objection. This word conveys the sense of something that happens to us that has an ongoing result in our lives. With this phrase, John is revealing for us the reality that obedience to the commands and demands of Jesus results in our love for Jesus growing to perfection.

And it is here, in this section of this letter, that we discover a timeless truth when it comes to connecting in true community. And that timeless truth is this: Our obedience to God results in true community with God and others as we grow in our love for God and others.  The timeless reality is 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. 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. Tomorrow we will begin to answer that question…