First John

Chapter Three

Introduction

"Joy" is the theme we are focusing on in our studies through First John. John wrote to you so that "...your joy may be full." He wanted you to experience fullness of joy in your fellowship with Jesus.

The word "full" can be translated "remain." Let your joy remain.

Why wouldn't your joy remain? In chapters one and two John tells you that certain things can rob you of your joy. Sin, the world, and false teaching can all rob you of your joy.

When your joy has been robbed, it needs to be restored. You need to cry out to God, as David did in Psalm 51:12, "Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit."

Restoring your joy is John's subject in the verses we've read this morning. In them he gives you two keys to restoring your joy. He tells you to behold yourself, and to behave yourself.

#1 Your Joy Will Be Restored When

You Behold Yourself As A Christian Should

The secret to remaining in your Christian joy is to see yourself as you really are. It is your belief that determines your behavior. Your doctrine determines your duties; your position prescribes your practice. Behavior, duty, and practice are of utmost importance. But they are the structure of your life and must rest upon the foundation of belief, doctrine, and position.

John is going to tell you to behave yourself as a Christian. But first he asks you to behold yourself as a Christian!

1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

You are to behold yourself in the light of God's great and gracious love for you, revealed in the person and work of Jesus. You are to behold yourself as a person bestowed with God's love, beloved of God, and as born of God.

You have been bestowed with God's love. Our English word bestow carries several meanings:

It can mean "to be presented with a gift." God has presented you with the gift of His salvation. That means He loved you of His own free will, not by anything you did or could do.

Bestow can mean "to put into action, service, or use." God's love bestowed upon you gives your life purpose and direction, putting you into use.

Bestow can mean "to store or house." God has chosen you to be the storehouse of His love on earth today!

You are beloved of God. Jesus Christ is the Beloved of God. If you are a Christian, Ephesians 1:6 describes you as "accepted in the Beloved." In other words, God accepts you just the way He accepts Jesus. This means that God loves you as much as He loves Jesus Christ! As fantastic as that sounds, that is what it means to be beloved of God.

John then adds perspective by reminding you in both verses that, as a Christian, you are born again as "children of God." You are to behold yourself in the position of God's sons and daughters!

Look at it this way:

You are beloved of God for Jesus' sake, born into His family by His Spirit, and bestowed with the Father's love! That is your spiritual position; that is your belief; that is your doctrine. That is how you are to behold yourself.

John knows how hard it is to behold yourself this way because of your current physical position in the world. The world around you, John says, does not "know" you "because it did not know Him." Jesus was not beheld by the world as the Son of God; you will not be beheld by the world as the children of God. In other words, the world is not a place in which it is easy for you to behold yourself as you really are. Everything seems to be against you, and you often struggle to believe what God has said about you.

John tells you to look at Jesus! He was revealed as the Son of God that He was. He will one day reveal you as the children of God that you are. At His coming you will "see Him as He is" - the Son of God, risen from the dead. At His coming you will be "like Him" - the children of God, raised in glorious bodies.

It is difficult to behold yourself as you really are in Christ. Your physical problems and persecutions can cause you to doubt your spiritual position. Beholding yourself as you really are is the secret of the Christian life. It is the foundation upon which everything depends. The world will never behold you as you really are. But you can and must behold yourself as the children of God whom Jesus will have the joy of revealing at His coming!

Beholding yourself as you really are in Christ is the first key to restoring your joy. Only then can you begin to behave yourself as a Christian should.

#2 Your Joy Will Be Restored When

You Behave Yourself As A Christian Should

You ought to behave like a Christian:

"Everyone who has this hope in [Jesus]..." is a phrase that describes Christians - those who have the glorious hope just described, whose position is in Christ, who have been born again into God's family.

As a Christian you are to "purif[y yourself]..." You are to be actively involved in a daily, disciplined process of becoming more like Jesus. Jesus is "pure"; we are to grow in purity day by day. Becoming a Christian changes your position, and it should then change your practice. In other words, you ought to behave like a Christian should.

How should you behave yourself as a Christian? John tells you. All of the remaining verses are his commentary on your behavior. John takes a look at three practical areas. He tells you to practice right living, to practice right loving, and to practice right learning.

Right Living is the subject of verse twenty-nine of chapter two, and of verses four through nine of chapter three.

Things reproduce themselves according to their nature. Orange trees produce oranges, and so on. Christ in you produces righteousness. Righteousness, in this context, is the practice of righteousness because of the presence of your new nature. You can practice right living because you have the presence of Jesus implanted within you.

This is the basis for John's discussion of sin in your life, in 3:4-9. Throughout the centuries, Christians have struggled over the exact meaning of these verses. They have struggled, both doctrinally and personally, with the presence of sin in a believer's life. Verse nine is especially difficult where it states "whoever has been born of God does not sin...and he cannot sin because he has been born of God." There are several views on these difficult verses:

There is the view that a Christian cannot commit even one single act of sin. We reject this for many reasons, several of which are John's own statements in chapters one and two that Christians will and do still sin.

A second view is that the word "sin" should be narrowed down to certain heinous things, like murder and adultery. This view concludes that no Christian can commit such sins. But Christians in the Bible have committed such sins! Scripture does not make this distinction.

A third view of these verses say that they refer only to willful, deliberate sins. They say that a Christian cannot deliberately sin. That just isn't true!

A fourth view says that when a believer sins it is no longer regarded by God as sin. That is preposterous. Sin is different in the believer; it is worse!

A fifth view declares that John is speaking hypothetically, that a Christian should strive to not sin. But John doesn't say a Christian should not sin; he says a Christian can not sin.

A sixth view is that John is contrasting two natures in the believer - the nature received from Adam which always sins, and the nature received from Jesus that never sins. While this is a true statement, it is ultimately flawed and potentially leads to heresy. If, when you sin, it is only your old nature acting accordingly, then eventually you will conclude that acts of sin cannot be avoided and have no effect on your new nature. You will go on sinning in the flesh, thinking it has no effect on you spiritually. This is something which the Bible says is not true.

There is one other view that fits the context and that is correct. The verbs used by John, under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, say that a Christian cannot persist in committing habitual, continual sin. You cannot persist in committing continual, habitual sin if you are born of God. Sin is no longer natural to you. You cannot go on contentedly committing sin without a struggle within.

John is simply saying that, since you are in Christ, Christ is in you, making it possible for you to practice right living. You are able to "abide in Him," to draw upon His power and victory over sin.

A person who has no power and no victory over sin, who cannot not sin, who lives habitually practicing sin, is not a Christian by John's definition. Such a person "has neither seen Him nor known Him." He is still "of the devil."

You do not can not live a good, holy life in order to become a Christian. But, because you are already a Christian, you can purpose in your heart to live a good, holy life. You can and should work out your position in your practice. You can behave yourself as a Christian should and practice right living.

Practice Right Loving:

1 John 3:11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,

Love for other Christians is another distinguishing mark of your new nature. If Christ is in you, you will inevitably love others who are in Christ.

John uses Cain and Abel as an illustration:

They were brothers, but Cain hated Abel and his hate expressed itself as murder. The fact that they were brothers, but that Cain did not behave as a brother should, is why John uses this illustration in this context. You see we, as the children of God, are brothers and sisters in Jesus. Yet within the Church you sometimes see people treating others the way Cain treated Abel. They may not murder one another, but their hate has other ways of expressing itself. They say that they are your brother or sister, but they behave like Cain! Listen to what John says about such a person:

1 John 3:14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.

Anyone who acts in the Church like Cain did towards Abel is not really a brother or a sister in Christ! Such people appear to be your brothers and sisters - the way Cain was a physical brother to Abel. But they are not really of the same spiritual family. They are still in and of the world. They still abide in death rather than in Christ. They are murderers in their hatred. Hatred and its various expressions towards believers is consistent with the old nature, and is inconsistent with the new nature that abides in believers.

Love means different things to different people. Since Christian love is such an important evidence of true conversion, John takes time to describe what he means by love. He describes right loving in terms of your faithfulness to serve your brothers and sisters according to their genuine needs:

1 John 3:17 But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

1 John 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.

Christian love is intensely practical. It is not based on your feelings for others. It is based on your faithfulness to serve them. Jesus is your example. He met your genuine needs, and still does. He was and is and always will be faithful to love you - no matter what you do. Though He feels for you with great feeling, His love is not based on His feelings. It is based on His faithfulness.

Right loving gives you confidence with your Father in heaven:

1 John 3:20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

1 John 3:21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.

John seems to be pointing out the dangers of being led by your feelings. When he says "and by this," he is referring back to what he just said. He just told you to put love into action by serving others. You love others, not because you feel like it, but because your new nature prompts you to treat them the way Jesus treats you. If you go by feelings, you will sometimes feel condemned before God because of what you feel towards certain of God's children! Your heart will condemn you. God is "greater than your heart, and knows all things"; you go on being His child, but you do not experience the privileges of your position. On the other hand, if you are faithful to obey God, and go on showing love in a practical way by serving others, you can be confident. Such active love is a product of the indwelling Spirit - an evidence that a work of God has taken and is taking place in your heart.

When you are confident, you can draw upon all of the privileges of your position as His child:

1 John 3:23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

1 John 3:24 Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

Work backwards with me through verses twenty-four to twenty-two:

Your position as a Christian who has been born of God's Spirit is that you are in Christ, and Christ is in you. Your practice is to keep His commandments. One of His commandments is that you love other believers the way Jesus loved you. When you love them this way God is pleased with you as any Father would be towards His children, because you treat His other children the way He does. You can claim all of the privileges of your position as His child.

Love is intensely practical. Don't confuse it with feelings. Confirm it by faithful service to others. You can behave yourself as a Christian should and practice right loving.

Practice Right Learning:

1 John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,

1 John 4:5 They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them.

1 John 4:6 We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

You practice right learning by testing everything you read or hear about Jesus. "Jesus" is God "come in the flesh." The Spirit within you helps you to compare everything you read and hear against the standard of God's infallible Word.

As we saw last week in chapter two, many "antichrists" are among us, teaching the devil's false word. You need not fear them. God's Spirit within you is greater than the spirit of evil and error being spread by the devil.

Popularity is no sign of truth! "The world hears them." Purity of doctrine is to be preferred to popularity.

This brings us to an important point. Right learning is a crucial aspect of your life as a Christian. It is extremely important that you be right about who Jesus is.

For example:

Let's apply right learning to what we've just discussed concerning right loving and right living.

It is possible for someone to be practicing what seems to be right loving but not be a Christian because they are not practicing right learning. There are many seemingly selfless individuals, who are busy showing practical love toward humanity more so than you or I, who are nevertheless not Christians because they are wrong about Jesus.

It is equally possible for someone to be practicing what appears to be right living but not be a Christian because they are not practicing right learning. The world is full of moral and religious people, whose standards of conduct exceed our own, who are nevertheless headed for hell because they are wrong about who Jesus is.

More and more in these last days right learning must be a prerequisite for determining whether or not someone is in Christ. We can easily be confused if we only look at their living and their loving. We can't be confused if their learning is wrong! "Every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God" - no matter what else you see in their lives or in their love.

Conclusion

Do you want to behave yourself as a Christian should? Then start by beholding yourself as you should!

You are beloved of God, born into God's family, and bestowed with His love. The more you behold yourself in Christ as you should, the more you will behave yourself as you should.

Look at your position; then practice right living, right loving, and, especially, right learning in these Last Days.