Authentic Christianity 1 John

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1 Authentic Christianity 1 John 11th May 2014 Tim Chester ** Due to technical problems the audio is not available for this sermon ** 1 John 1:1-2:2 One of the confusing things about Christianity is its variety. Some of that is cultural. Christianity in Africa, Asia and Latin America looks very different from Christianity in Europe. That s good because it reflects those different local cultures. But there are also significant differences of belief, different denominations, different spiritualities. Here in the UK we have Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians. We have Christians who claim God want us to be wealthy and Christians who renounce wealth to become monks or nuns. One of the controversial issues making the news is the desire of some people within the church to ordain practising homosexuals as church leaders. It s confusing. How do we make sense of this variety? How do we navigate this confusion? How do we know what is authentic Christianity? It doesn t help when other versions of Christianity claim to be superior. They say things like, We can offer a more intellectually sophisticated version of Christianity. Others say, We ve moved on from the simple gospel to an advanced life of spiritual victory. To make matters worse, most of the time we don t feel sophisticated or victorious. It s so easy to look at our sin and struggles, and look at other Christians and think we re in some loser-category of Christian. Maybe other versions of Christianity are better. Or maybe sometimes you wonder if you re really a Christian at all. In chapter 2 John describes how people have left the church (2:19). It s not hard to imagine that this would have caused confusion. It seems these people were claiming a deeper knowledge of God, a higher level of holiness, a greater anointing of the Spirit, a more victorious life. If you re just an ordinary Christian, that s pretty intimidating But John writes to show that the people who ve left are not all they seem. He s exposing those who claim to be superior. He s telling us how to spot false Christianity. He s training to smell a rat

2 This explains the strange opening of the letter. There s no greeting. There s no, I hope you re well. He jumps straight in. And three times in this opening paragraph John says we proclaim what we have seen. Look at verse 1 = we proclaim what we have seen. Look at verse 2 = we proclaim what we have seen. Look at verse 3 = we proclaim what we have seen. What is it that we have seen and we proclaim? It is word of life (1:1). He s talking about Jesus. The message of Jesus is the message that brings life. These verses echoes the language of John 20 where the Risen Jesus appears to his disciples. Jesus said, See my hands and now John says, We have seen. Jesus said, Reach out your hand and now John says, Our hands have touched. John saw and heard and touched the Risen Jesus. That s why the word is the word of eternal life. But the important question to ask about these verses is who are the we that John keeps talking about? In these first four verses John refers to we or our or us sixteen times. And he s not talking about we Christians. When he says we he s not including you and me. For one thing, you and I didn t see and hear and touch the Risen Jesus. Plus John talks about we in contrast to you, his readers. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. (3) No, the we that John talks about here are the people who heard and saw the Risen Jesus the first apostles. This is really important. God revealed himself in Jesus. Jesus is the Word-made-flesh. The problem with this (if I might put like that) is that you and I weren t around to see Jesus. How do we have contact with God s revelation in Jesus? The answer is we have the testimony of the apostles. We have people who were there, who heard and saw and touched Jesus. And how do we connect with the testimony of the apostles? Look at verse 4: We write this to make our joy complete. They wrote it down. Here it is in our Bibles. In our Bibles we have the apostolic testimony about the Word of life. And remember that s not just information about Jesus. It s the word of God. It s the life of God. It s the word, says John, that leads to fellowship with God (1:3).

3 So why does John start his letter like this? We ve got to remember why this letter was written. Look at 2:19-20 (and as we read it remember that we = the first apostles and you = John s readers including you and me): They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. Can you see what John is saying? These people may have left your church, but really they ve left us. They ve rejected the apostolic testimony. That s the real problem. That s what s really going on. But you, you know the truth. So John starts with his we have heard, we have seen, we have touched because accepting the testimony of the apostles is one of the key marks of an authentic church. It was confusing for John s readers to have people claiming to be superior. And it s confusing today. There are so many versions of Christianity. What are we supposed to make of it all? After all, no-one ever says, I m a Christian, but I m not sure about Jesus. The question is, Which Jesus? Is it the Jesus of the apostolic testimony? Is it the Jesus of the New Testament? Because there are plenty of people who claim to be Christians who reject the testimony of the apostles. They ll say things like, I like Jesus, but not Paul. Or they ll say, I like Jesus, but don t make me confirm to a book. Or they ll say, I like Jesus, but don t go on about repentance or judgment. Or they ll say, I like Jesus, but in the modern world we ve got to accept practicing homosexuals in the church. Sometimes it s more subtle. People say, The gospel is good for beginners. But we can offer a deeper knowledge of God or a more victorious life. Nobody says that they are anti Christ. But that s what some people are. That s what John calls them in 2:18. They claim to be Christians, but John says they are anti Christ because they reject the true Christ, the Christ presented by the apostles. After all, says John, We were there. We were the ones who heard and saw and touched Jesus. The apostolic Christianity of the New Testament is authentic Christianity. They were the first-hand, handpicked, Spirit-enabled witnesses of the real Jesus.

4 Other so-called Christians may look superior. After all, who wants to go head-to-head in a charity-battle with Mother Teresa or a piety-battle with Pope Francis or a miracle-battle with Benny Hinn? But the issue is not whether they appear superior. The issue is, Do they remain true to the testimony of the apostles? Look at verse 3: We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. John is saying, You may not feel superior. You may not perform miracles. You may struggle with sin. But you have fellowship with the apostles by believing their testimony and so you have fellowship with the Father and the Son. Brothers and sisters, we re just ordinary Christians. But there is nothing ordinary about ordinary Christianity We have fellowship with the Father and the Son. The delight the Father has in his Son is the delight that he has in you. The love the Father has for his Son is the love that he has for you. You re future is as secure as the future of Jesus. John doesn t want any stuck-up, self-righteous, full-of-themselves so-called Christians to rob you of that joy by making you feel inferior. You are loved by the Father with the same love that he has for his Son. It doesn t get any better than that. So John moves on in the second half of chapter to address one of the main things that robs us our joy and that s our awareness of continuing sin. Our sin can make us wonder whether we really know God especially when other Christians look much more godly. But John says an awareness of sin is actually a mark of authentic Christianity. Three times in these verses John says, If we claim. (John has lots of groups of three in this letter and usually the second and third expand on the first.) 1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness What does that mean? 1:8 If we claim to be without sin 1:10 If we claim we have not sinned. The issue is people who minimise sin. I ve conquered sin. I m good enough for God. My sin isn t a problem. Today people might say, I m just a victim of my up-bringing. The real problem is not individual sin, but social injustice. I may not be perfect, but I m not a bad person. As along as you re devote then God will accept you. You re good works can outweigh your bad works. We can live in complete victory over sin.

5 What does John says about these people? 1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 1:10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. We lie, we deceive, we make God a liar. Sin is real and it really matters. That s not a popular thing to say today. Apparently it wasn t popular in John s day. But I suspect John s readers would have been mightily relieved to read this. And so should we. Remember people have left the church claiming that sin is not a problem for them or that they have victory over sin. That s going to make you feel threatened, confused, fearful. Every time you sin you re going to feel that confusion. A couple of years ago I realised I d been a Christian for more than forty years. Do you know how I felt? I was grieved that I had made such little progress - forty years and still so sinful So many of my thoughts are dark and ugly. I see such little change in my life. So I start to wonder: Maybe I m deceived. Maybe I don t really know God. And then I hear John s words: No. It s the people who claim to be without sin who are deceived. They re the ones how don t know God. In washing powder adverts they always hold up clothes to the light. It s in the light that you really see the dirt. John says God is light (1:5). The more you know God, the more you come into the light, the more you see yourself in the light of his word the clearer your sin appears. In the half-light you can think of yourself as a good person or a clean person. But the more you step into the light, the more you see the stains of your sin. The sign of a deeper knowledge of God is not that you start to think that you re without sin, but that you start to see the depth of your sin. That s what John means by walking in the light (1:7). It means bringing sin into the light rather than hiding it or denying it or minimising it (John 3:19-21). But the really good news is that each of these false claims has a corresponding promise:

6 1:7 If we walk in the light the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. 1:9 If we confess our sins [God] will forgives us our sins and purify us. 2:2 Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Yes, we still sin. But Jesus purifies, forgives, atones. The word atone describes how Jesus turns away God s wrath. That s how serious sin is. It s not a mere slip or weakness. It provokes God s all-consuming wrath. But Jesus puts himself in between us and God s wrath. He takes our judgment and dies in our place. He absorbs all the full threat of God s wrath so that God can embrace us in his love. John s point is not that sin doesn t matter. Look at 2:1: My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. john doesn t want us to mistake what he s saying: the recognition of sin doesn t mean the acceptance of sin. Sin does matter. And this is how much it matters: it provokes God s holy wrath and it s only solution is the death of God s Son. And notice how John uses the present tense. When you became a Christian God gave you a new start. Some of you may remember the moment and the joy that you felt. But now a few years you feel like you ve made a mess of that fresh start. The joy has been replaced by doubt. You feel the pressure to perform. But John says, The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. (1:7) Not just purified us in the past, but purifies now in the present. We have an advocate with the Father (2:1). Right now Jesus is in heaven on our behalf. His wounded hands and his wounded side are the proof of his atoning sacrifice. They are the guarantee that our sin is forgiven. All you felt as a new Christian you can feel today. Every day is a fresh start. Every moment. What should you do to renew that sense of joy? Walk in the light, leave your excuses behind bring your sin into light, confess your sin. Trust that promise of forgiveness, trust in the blood of Jesus. That s it. Bring your sin to Jesus. There s nothing else to do. There is nothing like hearing the words, You are forgiven. Maybe you ve had an experience of conflict and known the relief of hearing the words, You are forgiven. Well, we are in a conflict with God and we can hear him say, You are forgiven. But to hear those words you must first say, I have sinned, I am guilty.

7 Most weeks during our gathering we have an act of confession. We have the opportunity to confess our sins together. It s not that God loves us any less when we sin or that he holds at a distance. Quite the opposite: we re the ones who are holding him at distance. When we sin we re making something else a bigger priority that God. Confession is an opportunity for us to come back to God. And confession restores our assurance because we hear his word of forgiveness not audibly, but by faith in the promises of the Bible. We hear God s word of forgiveness by faith in this promise: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1:9) This act of confession is a moment I often look forward to. In fact I can tell you exactly when and where that happens. I often pray on my walk to work. I start by confessing my sin as I walk down our road. And then I turn the corner and walk up the hill through the trees. And in that moment I look forward to our time of corporate confession. I know God has forgiven me but I look forward to the moment when together we hear his word of assurance and forgiveness. So what versions of so-called Christianity should we avoid? This passage gives us three things to look out for. It gives us, if you like, three odours to help you smell a rat. 1. First, false Christianity minimises the authority of the Apostles. 2. Second, false Christianity minimises the reality of sin. 3. Third, false Christianity minimises the atonement of Jesus. It might say Jesus died as an example or to demonstrate God s love. But it will deny that Jesus took the judgment of God in our place. Can you see how they go together? If sin is not a big deal then the cross doesn t achieve very much. If you ignore the apostles then you can make what you like of the cross. Sin is a big problem. But the cross is a big solution. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. There s one final twist. Look at 2:2: He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We can t keep this to ourselves this good news of forgiveness. The blood of Jesus is not just for us. It is for the world. So I want you to ask, Is our life group for the world? You may answer Yes. That s great. Let this be an encouragement to keep going. But you may realise the answer is No. You may conclude that our life group is primarily is for us mostly we care for another. That s a great thing to do. But the point of this little twist is that our life groups should be for the

8 world. The purpose of a life group is to proclaim the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for the sins for a lost world. Let me end with an exhortation to walk in the light. I once fell down a cliff. The worst thing about it for me was trying to walk home across town without anyone noticing that I was covered in blood I tried to hide my wound. Now I survived. I was left with a scar, but my wounds weren t fatal. But in the end the wounds of sin are fatal. Don t hide your wounds. When heroes in movies get shot they often try to hide it. Don t be like that. Bring your sin and your wounds to Jesus for the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

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