145. Beginner Bible Course: the three little letters of John

EPISODE 145:  Simple Bible overview:  the three little letters of John

I've been hanging around Christians, my entire life, kids, teens, adults, really, really old adults. I've found that many of us share an issue. Anxiety. We wonder, are we really right with God? Are we really God's kids? Again, some of us have asked Jesus into our hearts or raised our hand at youth group, or going forward at a meeting or prayed a prayer of salvation yet. We're just not feeling it. Then we read that comment of Jesus on the sermon on the mountain that doesn't help. Jesus said on the day of judgment, many will say, Lord, Lord. And then they'll list a series of activities that they did.

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Some of them quite impressive done in Jesus' name. Jesus' response in the sermon on the Mount. I never knew you go away from me. You who practice lawlessness that can rattle you. And then there's the matter of our enemy. Satan is called an accuser of the brethren brother and his code for Christ followers. It doesn't help to have Satan running around like a fruit inspector, lifting up your leaves and pointing at things that just don't fit with being a follower of Jesus. Scripture says he pig piles on us with condemnation. You're no child of God. Look at you. What a dumpster fire don't you see?

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You're still mine. After all I asked my students, wouldn't it be nice if we could be totally sure if we're really God's kids or not? I can tell they're really listening. You see many of them at the ripe age of 13 or 14 are already anxious about where they stand with. Jesus. Will I tell them thanks to the disciple. John carried along by the Holy spirit, we can be certain. John said it in his gospel trailer back in episode 82, he said, Jesus came to his own and his own received him not, but to as many as received him to them, he gave the right to be called children of God.

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How, even to those who believe on his name, there's John's word. Believe I hope by now. If you've been following this podcast, you know what that word means? It means to launch ourselves, to go all the way on, on who Jesus is and what he did for us. Now in his little letter of first, John, John, the disciple carried along by the Holy spirit, says it again in chapter five, verses 11 through 13, he says this God has given us eternal life. And that life is in his son. Whoever has the son has the life. Whoever does not have the son does not have the life.

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These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the son of God, wait for it. That you might know you have eternal life, no locked down, done deal again. John points to this as the issue he asks his readers. Do you believe on his name? Have you gone all in on Jesus? He came to be the substitute for your sin. Then when he said it is finished, paid in full on the cross, he meant that for your sin, then he Rose from the dead. And that guarantees new eternal life for you. As God intended from the beginning of creation in John's letter, he starts with that son of God.

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Part, we need to believe in Jesus as the son of God, there was a heresy in John's day. We've discussed it before. The big word is Gnosticism. It put head over heart that only the chosen few could understand the deep things of scripture and that the world and the flesh was evil. So God's son could never have become fleshly like us. Why would God ever unite with dirty material? And further, since the Gnostics put a Mr. Yuck sticker on material things and our physical bodies, why would God ever resurrect of physical Jesus or for that matter, resurrect us.

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So to be right with God, we need to have a right view of Jesus. The son of God, that he came as a fully human being to be our sin substitute and that he was fully physically bodily raised from the dead to guarantee our own resurrection and eternal life. Second, we need to go all in on Jesus, who is there to fix our problem sin and the separation that brings from God. There were some folks in John's day and in our day who deny they have a sin problem at all. There's no problem to be fixed. I'm good. But throughout scripture, God says we're not good.

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We're sinners by nature and practice. If we say we aren't, John tells us in his little letter, we're a liar and worse. We're calling God a liar. So to be right with God, to believe on his name, we have to believe we have a problem that needs to be fixed. The rest of John's little letter is a bit like dashboard lights that go off in our lives to show us something is wrong. Either that we haven't gone all in on Jesus or we have, but we need some maintenance. I tell my students when they take driver's ed and get their license, they better pay close attention to their dashboard lights, things like check engine, your airbag light, or the tire pressure is low, or that wrench light saying maintenance required.

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You don't just ignore those things. Not if you want to get from point a to point B safely, as you read first, John, John, to a number of dashboard lights that should go off in a child of God that something's wrong. I'll summarize those with three main dashboard lights. The love for God and his people light the doing what God asks obedience light and that not doing what God detests, practicing sin light. Let me explain. John said, if you've gone all in on Jesus, you're going to love God and his prickly people, your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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I need to explain what John means by love. There, there are three words he could have used. He could have used the romantic love, the physical attraction love word that have been pretty creepy with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Of course he didn't use that one or he could have used the affection. Love that field. Good, positive affection you have for those you really care about friends and relatives. I love you, man. Kind of love. He didn't use that one either. He used the word. That means I'll do something loving. Even when I don't feel it kind of love. Did you catch that? God's kids.

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Don't always feel a fond. I love you. God affection toward God. Sometimes it's I don't feel this at all, but I'm going to trust you're there. And I'm going to keep plodding in this relationship we have. And it's the same with brothers and sisters in Christ. John, in several places in his letter says, are you going to do the right thing with your brothers and sisters? The ones you're not drawn to. The ones you're even poked by. Are you going to meet their needs? Are you going to show them? Honor, even when you don't feel like it. John says, if over the long haul, we don't show this kind of sacrificial.

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I'm going to love you. Even when I don't feel like it love to God and our brothers and sisters, it should be a dashboard light that flashes brightly saying something is wrong. This needs maintenance or repair. The second dashboard light he mentions is doing what God asks. Obeying again. It's obeying. Even when we don't feel like it. This is closely tied to the dashboard. Light of love. Jesus consistently said, if we love him, we will keep his commandments. This was true in the old Testament, God through the prophet, Samuel said to Saul to obey is better than sacrificial action.

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God's kids are asked to obey. Do you remember Jesus' parable of the two sons both were asked to go work in the field. The first one says, yes, daddy, I will. And didn't the second one says, dad, I'm not going to do it. I'm just not feeling it. But later changed his mind. And did Jesus said it was the second one who honored God with his reluctant obedience rather than the first with his schmoozing lip service. If we consistently, as children of God, do not obey what God has said, it should be a dashboard light going off saying this needs to be fixed.

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Maintenance required. Caution. Don't keep driving this way. Now I should be quick to add. It's hard to obey God when we don't know what he wants us to do. Some of that can come through God, pricking our conscience through his indwelling. Holy spirit. We just have a sense this isn't right. But sometimes our conscience is like our hands get built up with calluses. We don't even feel the conviction or tug anymore. So this takes us back to Peter. Second letter, how essential it is that we know study and meditate on scripture. So we know what God is asking us to do.

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The third dashboard light is not doing what God detests. John calls it practicing sin. I'd like to take you all the way back to episode 21. Why is sin so distasteful to God? God is Holy and sin is a turd in God's Punchbowl. I've heard Christ followers say, I know God doesn't want me to do this, but I'm going to do it. And then I'll confess it to God and he'll be faithful. And just to forgive it, that verse by the way also comes directly out of first John chapter one, verse nine. I asked them what's up with that. You'd intentionally throw that turd into God's Punchbowl and then ask him to fish it back out.

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Why would a follower of Jesus do that? John says, don't do that. We will sin, but don't do it intentionally. And when sin happens, when we do what God detests as his kids confess this to God agree with him, that it is wrong. Ask for his help in getting victory over that. And James would add, get a brother or sister to beside you to help you not go back into that. Again, their prayers, encouragement and accountability can help greatly. When we want to throw another turd into God's Punchbowl. Let me review those three dashboard lights again, love for God and his people.

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Not a feeling kind of love, but a doing even sacrificial kind of love the same kind of love. Jesus showed us second, doing what God asks and obedience tied to our love for God. And I'll do this even though I don't want to kind of obedience and third, not doing what God detests refusing to practice or rehearse sinful things over and over again in our life. And when we do fall into it, because we're still broken, God is still washing the dirt off us. Little precious pigpens.

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We agree with God that is wrong. And we thank him that he was faithful. And just to forgive that sin, when he said it is finished on the cross on our behalf, I think you'll agree. First, John is a very practical little letter for us today. Just a few more comments from first John, when God's kids sin, we need to remember Jesus has already become a sin, bear, an atoning sacrifice for that sin. And when it comes to obedience, we have to remind ourselves we are so imperfect. Still. We certainly will not keep all of his commandments perfectly.

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So we need to learn to do that agreeing with God, confessing our sin and do it well, and do it quickly before the calluses build up on our hearts. We're also told by first John study Jesus, he's our model. John says, if we walk or live like Jesus walked, we know where his kids, I have a precious niece. She walks exactly like her dad. I mean, if you saw them walking down the street together, you chuckle and not just the same walk. How about the same talk as Jesus, a couple semesters back after a teacher made a sarcastic Quip.

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My daughter said, that's mean-spirited her teacher smiled. He knows me well and said to her, that's your dad talking right there. Walk as Jesus walked, talk as Jesus talked, that's what God's kids will grow to do. As we walk beside Jesus in the yolk. That's what happened to John, the disciple himself. If you remember he and Peter standing before the council in acts chapter four, the council looked at Peter and John and recognize them as having been with Jesus. And you'll remember later in acts in Antioch Jesus' followers began to be called Christians, literally little Christs that's because of their growing and often striking resemblance to Jesus.

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John adds a couple more. If you love the world, the love of God, the father and Jesus, his son gets squeezed out in you. There's only so much love in us to go around. Jesus said, you have to put God or the things of this world. First. They can't share first place. John describes why the love of the world is so alluring the lusts of our bodies, the lusts of our longing eyes and our boastful pride in this life. So do God's kids have to bite their nails down to the cuticles, worrying that we're really his kids. John says, no, dear.

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It's not that hard. You may know that you have eternal life. Just go all in on the sun and work on those dashboard. Lights of love, obedience and sin that flash regularly in your life. John wrote two more little letters. They're the shortest ones in the new Testament. Each is just one page. One chapter second. John is written to their chosen lady and her children. This is either code for a pastor in his parishioners after all in 98, D things were pretty awful for followers of Jesus, the Roman empire, or it could have been written to a real lady in her kids.

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I lean a little toward the first interpretation, but if it's the second that would make this a unique letter written directly to a woman, the message is simple. John says I'm tickled to death to hear some of your children are walking in the truth. Those obedience and practicing sin dashboard lights are staying unlit. John explains walking in the truth is keeping the commandments of God. And of course the great commandment is this loving one. Another John praises, the recipients for their love for one another. Remember love is doing love, not feeling love.

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John. Again, addresses those Gnostics who believed Jesus did not come in the flesh. In first, John, he pushes back. We saw him, we heard him. We touched him. He was a real person in this little letter of second. John John says Jesus was born. He died. He Rose a real person. And any teacher who comes through town and denies that don't be hospitable to him. I should explain this a little bit. After Jesus left our planet, Peter Paul and other teachers started canvassing the Roman empire with the gospel preaching. The good news we've been studying all the new Testament letters.

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These also started to circulate. Little clumps of believers showed up in nearly every town in the Roman empire. These new Christians needed people to teach them how to follow Jesus. So teachers would often come through town itinerants any holiday Inns they had were very seedy places. So Christians would put these teachers up in their homes and show them hospitality. John ends his little letter to his chosen lady and her children instructing her or them. These traveling teachers, if they deny Jesus was born, a human died in our place or Rose from the dead in a physical literal resurrection don't shelter or feed them in doing so be participating in their spreading of evil.

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And that's it. His letter ends John's third letters also short written to a guy Gaius like sex. John. It involves traveling preachers and teachers this time. It focuses on true teachers. He instructs Gaius open your doors with hospitality to teachers who teach the Jesus was born a real physical person, worse and died in our place and was physically resurrected from the dead. He had written a previous letter to Gaius his church, instructing them to show this hospitality, but there was a church, Boston Gaius his church, his name Diadra fees.

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Diane atrophies want to do be the man, the teacher in that level church. He rejected that earlier letter from John and accused John with wicked words. This church boss forbid the members of the church to show hospitality to them. Any traveling teachers, I mean, who needs traveling teachers? When you got me, he thinks, thanks. John writes. If I come Gaius I will address this with him. John closes this short letter by saying I'd like to write more, but not with pen and ink. I hope to see you face to face. Give my pieces and my greetings to all my friends there. Well folks, that's 20 new Testament letters from Romans to third, John, we've got just one left.

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Jude, roll up your sleeves, put up your Dukes and fight for the faith and we'll cover Jude's instructions for that rumble for our faith in our next wordpicture.