I John 1:5-2:6
ICE BREAKER
Think of someone that you love. What evidence is there that confirms the truth that you indeed love this person? What about someone who loves you? What evidence is there that this person loves you?
To ponder the answers to these questions leads us to an important conclusion: love is lived out through activity or through behaviors.
When we love someone we are eager to show this love. It is not a duty. There is something deeper than engages the heart and is evident through activity.
John is writing about this truth in I John and applying it to our love for God. He is exhorting us to put our love into action in our relationship with God.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- There are four ways to hear this teaching today:
We can feel condemned. I talk about it but don’t live it. If this is you then it is the Spirit calling you and inviting you to get on the path today. The Spirit’s goal is not to make you miserable but to invite you to life.
We can be callous. We can refuse to look in the mirror.
We can be concerned: this is where John wants us to be! Be concerned about my sin. My love for God needs to be reflected in my life.
Finally, we can be confident. To love someone is to be eager to show that love.
So, we start by being concerned so that we move toward being confident.What step can you take to move with your concern toward walking in the light?
- Share with the group your personal story with struggles with assurance of salvation. Share what has helped you settle in with assurance of salvation. If you are still struggling and you have built trust within the group please share with the group what your struggle is. Ask them for help if you want help.Group leaders: consider sharing I John 5:13 with the group. This verse can help with assurance of salvation:
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
- Read through the bullet points C S Lewis writes about in his book(at the bottom of the notes section below) then share which bullet point most describes how you tend to minimize your own sin. Let the Holy Spirit invite you to confession and humility in order to foster nearness to Christ.Consider having a group time to pray. Confession and gratitude are two important categories that can guide the prayer time.
- John is inviting us to walk a walk of love with Christ. Sin tears us away from our first love. Reflect on one or two of your sin patterns and then ask the Holy Spirit to help you identify the competing love that vies for your hearts’ affection.Ask Him to assist you in seeing the emptiness of the sin.
Consider reading Isaiah 55:1-3 as God speaks of how we “labor” for what does not satisfy. Then God says, “Lisen, listen to Me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”
NOTES AND QUOTES
John experienced the love of Jesus first hand as his disciple. Now, he wants to pass this experience on to us in his writings.
He also talks to us about loving God in return.
Part of today’s focus is on the issue of assurance of salvation.
It is common to wonder if we are truly saved. At times these doubts are caused by our behaviors.
The entrance into the kingdom is about starting a relationship with Christ.
In I John 1:5-6 John tells us that in God there is no darkness, so, if we walk in darkness we are not in relationship with Him.
In response to this truth our internal radar comes up because we know that we sin each day.
Our sin may be a habitual sin like pornography, or gossip, or pride.
So, if these sins happen again and again does this mean we don’t have a saving relationship with Christ? This is not what John is saying.
A series of questions begin to arise: How much sin is too much? Is there a point where the quantity or type of our sin is too great? Does a true believer ever sin? Do we reach a point where we never do that sin again?
Let’s begin with looking at this question, “What does it mean to walk in darkness?”.
As we ponder this, let’s reflect on how much we think of God each day? Do I do anything on a daily basis that demonstrates that I love him? Or, is my life comfortable being with people while excluding God altogether? Do I spend time glorifying the darkness?
John tells us in I John 1:7 that we have fellowship with one another as we walk in the light. Notice that he connects walking in the light to our fellowship with one another rather than fellowship with God.
Being content to live in relational brokenness is not consistent with walking in the light.
So, to walk in the light includes loving other believers and being in fellowship with them.
In verse 8-9 John acknowledges that we are all sinners.
So, John is not saying we need to be perfect. But, there needs to be a certain dynamic present and that dynamic is: confession of our sins.
If we harbor bitterness and are comfortable with sin patterns that is a problem. There is a lack of ownership and humility if we live like this.
There must be confession.
So, when we do something against the God we love we apologize for it. We confess it to Him.
In I John 2:1 he speaks to us as “little children”.
This is tender.
We are precious to the Father.
When we do sin our sin is an offense to God. We deserve hell and it is not good to lose sight of this. We must remember that we all deserve hell. But, as we confess our sin we have an advocate–Jesus Christ the righteous One— so we are defended.
Gratitude begins to emerge.
A key part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal to us our sin. This must happen in order for us to see the need for a substitute–a Savior.
Propitiation means appeasement. The only appeasement that works is Christ Himself. Jesus appeases the demand for righteousness through His righteous life and His sacrificial death on the cross.
In I John 2:3 we are invited to reflect on this question: Do I really love God?
If we do, we will obey Him.
To claim we know Him without following His commandments is not legitimate.
We are not saved by good works.
So, we shift from: “Am I saved?” to the questions, “Do I really love Him?”.
Notice now that we have shifted fully into the realm of relationship with this second question.
Remember God has given us His whole heart; He’s proven His love for us by “…enduring the worst by sending his Son for us…”. Now, He is longing for us to give HIm our heart, our affection, and our obedience,..if we are willing.
If we diminish the seriousness of our sin and justify ongoing sin we then diminish our love for God. So, you can see it’s not about breaking some rules that happen to irritate God. No, it is about agreeing with Him that He is life and that walking with Him is how we show our affection for Him.
In the book, “The Problem of Pain “ CS Lewis writes about human wickedness. The pull is within all of us to diminish what sin really is. We tend to soften it and justify it in a variety of ways.
Here are Lewis’ thoughts on some categories with which we soften sin:
- We look on the outside–a focus only on external behaviors. We don’t face ourselves. We judge people. We have opinions of other people with very little data. Like a golfer saying he got an 84 but then explains he 4 putted a couple holes as if that is not part of his game. No, his game includes poor putting at times.
- Corporate guilt: we get used to it because everyone else is going the same direction.
- Time cancels sin. Only the cross of Christ takes away my sin, not the passage of time. All my sin is mine. My sin is airtight evidence that I don’t love Him in these stories of sin. But, I also have to have in mind that my sincere love for God is enabled because Christ is between me and God. Now, my sin does not have power over me. This all produces gratitude
- Safety in numbers. For example you get an F and the teacher tells you that you got the lowest score in the class. You feel the weight of your failure. But, if everyone in the class failed the test we start to think the teacher blew it. Does God really mean we all failed the test? Yes. There is no safety in numbers.
- Historical relativeness: for example watching a movie of brutality of medieval times and we say, “How could they do such things?” We are not getting better as a people. I am as wicked as the Jews who missed the Messiah even though they saw His miracles.
- Kindness. If this is the only virtue it destroys all other virtues. Another word for kindness is tolerance.
- Avoiding legalism. Efforts to improve our habits of holiness can be mocked by culture. It is easy to honor people rather than honor God.
- Sentimentality: our movies and books do this. A lot of thriller novels take sinful behavior like adultery or revenge and make it exciting. Another example is a song about the afterlife that makes us feel good but does not contain truth.
