"I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven
for His name's sake.
I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know Him who is from the beginning.
I am writing to you, young men,
because you have overcome the evil one.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.
I write to you, fathers,
because you know Him who is from the beginning."
Him who is from the beginning.
The "He" and the "Him"
throughout this section is Christ.
The Father is called out distinctly
by "Father" or by the term "God," the title.
The name.
Him who is from the beginning
throughout 1 John is
the Lord Jesus Christ.
"I write to you, fathers, because you know
Him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong
and the Word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one."
Now, I'm just going to tell you right off,
this might be a little bit strong to say this,
but John perplexes me.
And I don't know how else to say it.
His mind does not work
the same way mine does.
He has an inspired mind,
so if there's any fault here,
it's undoubtedly with me.
To me, Paul is systematic.
I like Paul's way of thinking.
I love Paul's letters.
I can follow his logic.
He somewhat goes on a straight line.
John is just so different.
I'm not saying he's not logical,
but he's just different.
John Piper I think hits it on the head.
He likens John's mind to a bee
that's coming up to a flower.
Here you've got the flower
and the bee just kind of buzzing around like this.
(buzzing)
That's kind of how his mind works.
He likes to circle.
In other words, he likes to come around
to the same things over and over again,
but he doesn't take exactly the same
trajectory each time.
He's kind of buzzing around the flower.
When you get the feeling Paul -
he's out here and he just goes right in there.
And I think that's a good way.
And that's what we see right here.
I mean, we're going to see this
all the way through 1 John.
John is going to repeatedly
come back around to the same ideas
over and over.
He uses a little bit different terminology,
it's true but you're going to see,
it's clearly the same thing
all over again, and all the way through the book,
he just continuously does this
same kind of thing.
Yes, as he buzzes around that flower
he tends to introduce some new information.
He takes us deeper.
He takes us further.
But he just keeps buzzing around in these circles.
He's doing it right here.
I mean think about it.
"I'm writing to you, little children..."
"I'm writing to you, fathers..."
"I'm writing to you, young men..."
You get the feeling if that was Paul -
I get this feeling:
if it was Paul, he would have given me
an order that was like,
little children,
young men,
fathers.
I mean, there's descending
or ascending order.
There's order there.
And he would have said it once.
But that's not good for John.
He has to come back around and say it
all over again.
"I write to you, children..."
"I write to you, fathers..."
"I write to you, young men..."
And you know if you look at it,
he says some of the things
exactly the same,
but he changes some things.
And he adds different details.
And that's just John's style.
You can see this.
And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong.
John is not illogical.
And repitition can be good, right?
Wise teachers repeat themselves.
It's like, you know, John is buzzing
around this thing,
and if he goes around it once and you didn't get it,
well, he's going to buzz around it again
and he's going to say it a little bit differently.
So probably, if you don't get it the first time
you can get it the second or the third or the fourth time.
And each time, he's going to develop it
a little bit more for us.
And like I say, we're going to see
in the months ahead throughout 1 John,
you're going to feel like,
weren't we already here?
Yep, just look back a chapter.
John already had us right here.
So, anyway, we see that circling style
in these three verses before us.
Now, what I want to do here
is give you an observation
and ask a question or two,
and then seek to answer those questions
before we move on.
Here's an observation.
Throughout 1 John -
I just want you to think about this.
I can tell you,
since I've been reading my Bible
as a brand new convert 25 years ago,
every time I'd read this,
I guess I would wonder,
why is it even here?
Why does John have to say it twice?
Why aren't these folks apparently in order?
Doesn't he deal with all the Christians
that he's writing to as though
they're little children?
I see that title repeatedly
throughout this letter
when he's addressing everybody.
Why in this one place does he call out
fathers and young men as well?
I just want you to see this.
Throughout 1 John,
notice 1 John 2:1.
"My little children..."
Who's he writing to?
He's writing to everybody.
Everybody that he's writing to who's saved.
Let's just say that.
He is making a distinction throughout this letter.
He definitely has Christians in mind.
But he calls all the Christians
in 1 John 2:1 "my little children."
"I'm writing these things so that
you may not sin."
Well, he certainly isn't excluding
the older, more mature whatever
and saying I don't care about you guys.
Obviously, he's talking to everybody here.
"If anyone does sin..."
If anyone. He's talking to all of them there.
1 John 2:18
"Children, it is the last hour
and as you've heard that antichrist is coming."
Again, he uses two different Greek terms
throughout 1 John for "little children,"
but nevertheless, he uses both of them,
by the way.
The first time in v. 12 he uses one,
and then when he refers to the children
again at the end of v. 13, he uses the other.
But he's using both of these titles
throughout the book
to speak to everybody.
1 John 2:28
"Now little children, abide in Him."
That's everybody.
Everybody needs to abide in Him.
1 John 3:7, "Little children,
let no one deceive you.
Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as He is righteous."
That's everybody.
1 John 3:18 "Little children,
let us not love in word or talk,
but in deed and truth."
1 John 4:4 "Little children,
you are from God."
1 John 5:21 "Little children,
keep yourselves from idols."
That's the observation.
The observation is that
all the way through 1 John,
he deals with all of the Christians
as being little children.
So, here in 1 John 2:12-13 -
(incomplete thought)
actually all three of these verses -
John does something that he does
nowhere else in his writings.
Not just anywhere else in this epistle,
nowhere else in any of his writings
does he ever call out
distinct categories of Christians.
That's my observation.
And the question is: why?
And before we try to answer,
perhaps a second question should be asked as well.
Why does he throw these categories at us
in such a seemingly random order?
Little children, then fathers,
then young men.
And you know, who knows, right?
(incomplete thought)
Here's a possible solution.
Why does John address three groups here
and in the order that he does?
I mean here's a possible scenario.
The use of "little children,"
"fathers," "young men,"
and the order that they're in
may have originated something like this.
It's very possible that what John's doing here
in v. 12 "I'm writing to you, little children..."
is he does what he does everywhere else
in the book.
He is talking to everybody.
But then, what he does,
just this one time
and perhaps for no other reason
than respect,
just to show honor,
he feels led to address
these two specific groups directly
just this one time.
And the reason I say that
is with some biblical validity.
Think with me here.
You don't need to turn to it,
but let me just tell you
how Philippians starts.
Philippians - Paul is addressing
the Philippian believers.
He says, "Paul and Timothy,
servants of Christ Jesus..."
Listen to how he addresses them:
"to all the saints who are at Philippi
with the overseers and deacons."
Now you think about the three categories there.
The first one is all-encompassing.
And then the second and third,
he calls out distinct people
in the church.
And he calls out those that are to have
the highest honor first
and then those that are honorable,
but not quite with that venerability second.
That seems to be perhaps why we get this.
"Little children" is very endearing.
He calls them all by that.
But John knows he's got these
venerable, grey-haired
warriors of the cross out there
and these vibrant, spiritually strong
young men as well.
And I don't think it necessarily needs
to be gender specific.
He might be encompassing the grey-haired
and those that are young,
but he calls them out.
Like I say, maybe for no other reason
than just to identify them
and show his regard for them
and to show respect.
Anyway, Philippians 1 gives me
kind of a pattern for this same thing.
And so I think it is a worthy cross reference.
It is worthy to look at.
Another observation that I would make here:
As you read through this,
you never want to say,
ok, well, I'm not in two of these categories.
I'm only in the third,
and so only what's in that third category
applies to me.
Listen, I can tell you this.
Every single thing said
in each of these categories
is said of everybody
somewhere else in 1 John.
In other words,
my observation is this.
When John addresses "little children,"
when he addresses "fathers," when he addresses "young men,"
he does not mean that what he says
about the fathers is only applicable
to them and not to you
if you're not one of the fathers.
You follow what I'm saying?
What's true about one here
is true about all.
1 John will show us clearly
that knowing the father,
knowing Christ, overcoming the evil one,
having the Word of God abiding in you,
these are all realities that are true
of all Christians.
John applies these truths
to specific groups that are real
and true and valid for the whole church.
So you don't want to skip over any of these verses as though
they don't apply to you.
What's true in each category is true
of every Christian here.
That's just an observation.
So, now, I think we need to really ask ourselves,
why are these verses here?
Now, look, if you're not really acquainted
with 1 John;
if you just read this letter through
over and over and over,
I think it will begin to jump out at you
that these seem to interrupt the flow.
They almost seem misplaced.
I mean, I'm thinking about
if I'm going to write to somebody
and tell them why I'm writing -
"I'm writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake."
If I'm going to tell somebody why I'm writing to them,
I'm typically going to tell them that
at the beginning of the letter.
Why am I just going to jump in?
And the thing about this,
get a feel for the flow here.
(incomplete thought)
Let's read down through these verses
and omit v. 12, 13, and 14.
We have these tests of true Christianity
coming at us one after another
after another.
I mean, if you just think about 2:3.
"By this we know that we've come to know Him
if we keep His commandments."
Bang! You're hit with this.
Do you keep His commandments?
If you keep His commandments,
you can know that you know Him.
This is a test of true Christianity.
"Whoever says 'I know Him,' (v. 4)
but does not keep His commandments
is a liar and the truth is not in him."
Wow! John's being dogmatic about
who is in and who is out.
"Whoever keeps His Word (v. 5),
in Him truly the love of God is perfected."
I mean, he's saying,
you need to be those that
keep His commandments.
You need to be those that keep His Word.
"By this we know that we are in Him."
How? "Whoever says he abides in Him
ought to walk in the same way in which
He walked," and if you don't, you're not true.
You're not real.
He goes on to talk about
this one commandment.
Love. "I'm writing you no new commandment,
but an old commandment, that you had from the beginning.
The old commandment is what you have heard.
At the same time, it is a new commandment
that I am writing to you,
which is true in Him and in you
because the darkness is passing away;
the true light is already shining."
He says this about that commandment:
"Whoever says he's in the light
and hates his brother is in the dark."
You are not true.
You are not real.
"Whoever loves his brother abides in the light,
and in him there is no cause for stumbling."
"Whoever hates his brother is in the darkness
and walks in the darkness and does not know where he's going
because the darkness has blinded his eyes."
Now you skip over to v. 15.
"Do not love the world or the things in the world.
If anyone loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him."
Again. He goes right back to the tests.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
You love the world, you don't know God.
The love of the Father is not in you.
That means you're lost.
"All that is in the world, the desires of the flesh,
the desire of the eyes..." He goes on in v. 18.
"Children, it is the last hour. As you have heard that antichrist..."
In v. 19, "they went out from us because they were not of us."
I mean, what's a good indication that somebody's not real?
They go out from us. If they go out from us,
they're not of us.
I mean, he's got these tests - one after another.
Why in the world did he just stop in v. 12
and say, "I'm writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven."
It's like John, this interrupts the flow
of these tests.
It's like we're getting this barrage,
and then here's all these tests
coming at us;
shaking us with the reality
of true Christianity
and John just sort of unexpectedly
injects v. 12-14.
So what are we supposed to make of this?
Well, I think it's clear.
I think if you have any pastoral bone
in your body,
it's clear why he does.
Just compare 1 John 2:4 and 1 John 2:12.
Compare them.
1 John 2:4
"Whoever says, 'I know Him,' but does not
keep His commandments is a liar
and the truth is not in Him."
Now, let's do that all over again
with me adding this;
with you thinking about this.
How does this make you feel?
"Whoever says I know Him but does not
keep His commandments is a liar
and the truth is not in Him."
How does that make you feel?
1 John 2:12
"I'm writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven
for His name's sake."
How does that make you feel?
Now, I recognize I changed my tone.
(incomplete thought)
But that's kind of the feel.
Why does he stick these in here?
I have a feeling he's sticks them in here
just because of the rigors of these tests.
These tests can shake you.
They sift us.
John knows this letter is tough.
And it is, is it not?
I mean, he knows.
He's calling people out.
He's calling people liars.
This is tough stuff.
(incomplete thought)
What happens when you start
telling people, "by this we know
that we've come to know Him,
if we keep His commandments."
I mean, where are your minds going?
Man, what does my life look like?
I mean, am I keeping His commandments?
We just came off the one about loving.
I mean, you start thinking,
am I really loving the brothers and the sisters?
Am I really loving them?
I mean, any of us that have consciences -
our imperfections, our failures,
they begin to jump up and down
in front of our face
and we're saying, ok, we know
this isn't perfection;
we know that this is a pattern of life,
and we're asking ourselves, I hope,
trying to ask ourselves honestly,
is there an evidence that God has
done something in my life
and produced this kind of person
out of me?
I mean, he knows that he is
describing true Christianity
in terms that are strong.
Isn't John dogmatic?
If you say you know Him,
but this isn't true,
you're a liar!
He doesn't have much grey area.
It's just boom!
This or this!
This is true or this is true!
That's it. Two categories.
There's no in-between.
And you can come out of these things
and feel beat up.
And you can imagine,
John - what's the reputation we have of John?
He's the one that Christ loved.
He was also called "Boanerges" with his brother.
The sons of thunder.
This feels kind of thunderous here.
But you can imagine John feeling like,
perhaps - think about it -
preachers know this.
You say hard things.
You get a feeling when, you know,
you're hitting people with hard things.
You get that feeling.
And undoubtedly, he's feeling,
wow, I've been really forceful;
I've been intense with people.
(incomplete thought)
What happens?
What happens when you start
laying tests out like this?
You know another thing preachers know
a lot of times is they take out
the spiritual shotgun
and this thing is full of bird shot,
and they aim at a certain person
or they've got certain people in mind
that this is really applicable to
and kaboom!
They blow a person off the front row
that they did not mean to hit.
But that's one of the problems
when you speak like this,
you have people that sit there
who are genuine Christians
with very tender consciences.
And you start talking like this,
and the hardened professing sinner
back there in that back row
who this is every bit meant for -
right over the top of their heads.
You shoot them and they've got
the bulletproof vest on.
It just bounced right off of them.
And you blew away sister so-and-so
in the third row.
And she's feeling crushed,
like going out of there thinking,
I can never be a Christian.
Her failures are there in her face
and she's going out.
She's wounded.
And that's the kind of thing that
he recognizes happens.
This very kind of thing.
As a child of God,
you can begin to feel like
you're made aware of your weaknesses.
You're made aware of your own failures
and your own struggles,
and John knows.
You say hard things like this;
strong statements.
You end up wounding people
and so what he does is
he actually interrupts these hard things
and he sticks something very comforting
and very encouraging right here
in verses 12, 13, and 14.
He's backing off.
He's certainly not backing down
from anything that he said.
But he's backing down from his
rigorous dogmatism
as to who's a liar and who's true.
He seems to turn aside for a moment
of comforting his hearers before he
goes back and he resumes again
the strong and rigid doctrine
that goes back to sifting the hearts of men.
Now, I think the thing we need to ask
is well, ok, how are these verses encouraging?
Because here's the thing;
here's the thing I'm thinking about.
Let's say I have a revelation from God,
just like he did.
And I know,
there are lost people
who profess to be Christians in this room.
And I come up here
and I'm giving you the test.
And I begin to lay these tests down.
I seek to weed out those who are false.
I stress you have no true fellowship with God
if you walk in the darkness.
I stress that you're a liar about knowing Christ
unless you keep His commandments.
I mean, I'm hitting you hard.
I have this revelation from God.
I know some of you are not real.
But at the same time,
I know that I'm likely going to wound
some of God's true ones.
I don't want that to happen.
But I know in trying to get to the others,
I've got to speak that strong.
But I also know how true Christians
are going to deal with this.
My question is this,
if I'm speaking really strong
and you've got sister so-and-so there
who is trembling.
She feels like I'm weak.
There's these doubts that are cropping up.
She's questioning.
She's wondering: am I true?
Am I false?
And you know the devil can take advantage right there too,
and say, you're not keeping His commandments.
Think about this time and this time.
You're not loving so-and-so.
Think about your failures here.
He can come right along.
That standard is so high,
you've never measured up to it.
Just listen to how he's talking.
Just listen to John's words.
And a feeling of condemnation can creep in.
You feel like there's no hope.
And here's the thing,
if you're a true Christian sitting out there
and you suddenly are flooded
by what are unwarranted doubts,
by these tests,
how is it going to be encouraging to you
for me just to interrupt all these
strong assertions,
and say, "I'm writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for His name's sake."
I mean, if you've just been shaken
to even wondering if you're truly a child or not,
and I come along and I say "I'm writing to you, little children,"
you're saying, yeah, but he knows some of us aren't true,
and I think I'm one of those.
So I'm not even in that crowd.
How does that comfort me?
What does that do for me?
How does that help?
If your assurance has been shaken
by these things,
some of you, your assurance
should be shaken by these.
But if you're genuinely a Christian
with a sensitive conscience,
the devil's there throwing accusations at you,
if your assurance has been shaken,
how does a verse like this
rescue you from this?
I mean, do you see what I'm saying?
If you're already doubting,
how does this take away your doubts?
Wouldn't you just be minded to say
I don't even think I'm in that group?
He comes along here
and he's really positive
that somebody's sins are forgiven
for Christ's name's sake.
But we can tell by the way he's talking,
he already assumes some of us aren't real.
And I'm thinking I might be one of those people.
And so when he goes and he starts talking
just to the little children,
how does that help me?
How does that rescue me
from my assurance being shaken?
Here the Holy Spirit undoubtedly prompts
John to back off for a second
in order to comfort and encourage
the true people of God
lest they become overwhelmed
by a false sense of condemnation.
How does saying this rescue them?
If they come away from these tests with doubts
by the highness of the standard,
the dogmatism of John,
then he just shifts gears
and he throws these three verses at us.
"I'm writing to you, little children..."
Isn't this person just going to conclude
that they probably aren't really
one of the little children that John's addressing?
And brethren, it happens all the time.
The devil is an accuser.
And you start setting up things like this.
Look, there's not one of us that have
loved the brothers and sisters perfectly.
There's not one of us that have kept the commandments perfectly.
There's not one of us that is
imitating Christ, walking like Christ walked perfectly.
And as soon as we start looking at this
and examining this in our life -
and these are the tests.
You don't want to ignore them.
These are God-given tests.
These have to be true in your life.
You are in one camp or the other.
We have to take these things seriously.
But as we're sorting through our life,
I think any of us that are honest,
this makes us feel like
this is a high standard.
Who can measure up?
Does anybody feel like that
when you hear these things?
(incomplete thought)
And I know this.
I hear this from Christians.
They struggle.
They just feel like I don't feel like
I'm loving the brethren like I ought to.
I don't feel like my life
is committed to Christ as it ought to be.
I don't feel like there's a level of purity there
that I know there ought to be.
Here John, he sees the Christian struggling,
and he interrupts things.
Just interrupts by saying,
"I'm writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven
for His name's sake."
Isn't there a possibility that
that Christian is just going to get carried away
with their doubts and assume that
John's probably not talking about them?
You know John knows
that there's imposters among us.
So he doesn't for a second believe
that we're all little children.
How does this really help bolster
the assurance of the true Christian?
That to me is huge,
because I'm looking at this
and I'm recognizing,
we get this.
I know we get people that struggle
with their assurance,
and they need to struggle with it
because they're not measuring up.
But we get people that get shaken
and they ought not to be shaken.
They're not ones that God wants us to weed out.
They're His true children.
And so I'm really interested pastorally
to just examine this and say John,
teach me here.
Teach me how to help and to comfort
the little children when they get shaken.
So how does it help?
Well, look, to the best
that I can decipher here,
it helps just this way.
If you think about what's being said here.
John stops.
He looks at the Christian
who is feeling condemned;
who is feeling overwhelmed;
who's seen these tests
and is somewhat unsure,
and he says, look,
walking like Christ walked,
walking in the light, confessing your sins
when you sin,
keeping Christ's commandments,
loving the brethren,
are you feeling that this is way out there?
Are you feeling like this is only for Charles Spurgeon,
Amy Carmichael?
Only they can live this way.
Do you feel like this is just impossible
for the average Christian?
Do you feel the standard is just too high?
And that what he's saying in this letter
is just being too dogmatic
and there's no hope for you to live
up to this standard?
The devil's throwing accusations
of your failure at you
and your own ineptness
at loving the brethren?
He comes and he says,
"I'm writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven
for His name's sake."
You see what he's doing?
He's saying, look, you're thinking
these things are hard.
But he says, I know there's reality
among you.
I see it.
I know it.
He says precious children.
Let's take your eyes off the tests
for a second.
Let's just get your eyes off those
rigorous tests of true Christianity,
and turn your eyes
back to the initial wonders of being a Christian.
Just forget your own failures.
You are forgiven for His sake.
Now you just need to dwell there.
It doesn't depend on your performance.
Because that's where tests like that take us.
They take us to examining our life.
Rightly so.
But you can't get away from it.
You start looking at your life;
you start looking at your failures;
you start looking at your performance,
and he backs off this for a second.
He says, eyes off performance.
I want to take you back
just to the wonders
that you encountered in Christ
at the beginning.
It does not depend on anything
you have done or are doing
or will ever do.
Forgiveness of sins.
It's all about receiving a gift.
And it is free. And it is by faith.
And you know what?
The enemy of your souls may hound you
and accuse you and condemn you.
That may be true.
For your sins and failures,
and yes, they're there.
But you know what?
You can answer the snake.
But as much as anything,
you can answer your own conscience.
I mean here he is and he's saying,
I wrote to you because your sins
have been forgiven for His sake.
For His sake.
They haven't been forgiven you
for keeping any of these tests.
They've been forgiven for His sake.
You need to remember that.
You need to go back there.
Answer that snake every time
that he brings up accusations.
You bring up the name,
the blood, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know what you do not want to do?
You do not want to argue your performance
with the devil.
Don't do it.
Let him back you right into the corner
where your eyes have no place to go
but back on the Lord Jesus
just like in the very beginning.
It's for His name's sake.
You rely absolutely and utterly
upon Jesus Christ and upon Him alone.
He is your only hope.
You can be sure that your sins are forgiven.
Why? His name is at stake.
It's for His name's sake.
It must be.
And he goes on to say this -
and I'm going to deal with these in pairs.
If you go down to 1 John 2:13,
to the end there,
"I write to you, children."
This is the second thing he says.
To the children - the little children -
"because you know the Father..."
You know the Father.
Brothers and sisters,
again, this backing away
from these rigorous tests.
And it's saying this:
I know this.
The Spirit is known as the Spirit of adoption.
And as the Spirit of adoption,
what does He produce within us?
What comes out?
What comes forth?
What's the cry?
Abba, Father.
Again, he backs them off of these tests
just to the glories,
just to the simplicity.
Christian, have you not found
that God is no longer some far off force?
Some distant, out there God
on the horizon?
So often, the lost man just has this idea
of God either as Santa Claus
or is opposed to Him.
But it's not that anymore.
He's not some old man upstairs.
Suddenly, God produces something in you
when He saves you that cries,
not just "Father," - "Abba."
There's an endearment.
And it's true. It's real.
Do you not find a sweetness in that?
It's like he's pulling these Christians
back from "you're a liar,"
if you don't do this.
He's pulling them back in to
just come back to the very wonders
of the foundations upon which
your Christianity is built.
You've been brought into this family.
And then he says this,
1 John 2:13 "I'm writing to you, fathers,
because you know Him who is from the beginning."
In 1 John 2:14 where he addresses the fathers
the second time, he says,
"I write to you, fathers,
because you know Him who is from the beginning."
He says exactly the same thing
about the fathers both times.
And I don't necessarily think
Scripturally speaking that we need to
think just of fathers in an age -
a physical age sense,
but more so the spiritually mature.
But think about this, "Him who was from the beginning"
as I pointed out before,
this is speaking of Christ.
And it's just come back from ideas
about your performance
and just think.
John's saying I know this is true about you.
I can see it.
You've been professing to be a Christian
for a long time, and I can see.
There's an intimacy you have with Christ.
I can stand off to the side and watch
as some of these glorious lines
come off these songs.
I'm putting myself in John's position
if he could see.
He's saying, I know.
I can see.
I can see it in your eyes
when the name of Christ comes up.
It's not just some cold, dry,
like you think when you're lost
about the idea of religion.
It was just dry.
But the name Christ comes now,
there is a sweetness.
There is a beauty.
He can look and say, I know.
You guys have been walking with the Lord.
I can see it.
You know His voice
in a way you used to not know it;
His promptings.
I see this.
Not just knowing His voice,
not just knowing His promptings,
but knowing His silence.
Just coming to know His dealings
with His people.
He says, I see it.
I know it's there.
This is spiritual maturity.
John says I know,
some of you might be shaken
by the high standard that I put up.
But I look at many of you,
I look at your lives,
I can see Christ is special to you.
I know you are not serving Him the way
you want to.
I know you're not living the way
you know He's worthy of.
But I can see your eyes light up at His name.
I can see the pain that you have
when He's dishonored.
I see that you know Him in a way
that the rest of the world just doesn't know Him.
You see, he's bringing these people
to a place where he's going to
some of the basics;
some of the rudimentary realities
about our walk,
and how we view Christ.
How we relate to Christ.
And then he says this,
he's going to talk to the young men
about the devil.
1 John 2:13 "I'm writing to you, young men,
because you've overcome the evil one."
He says just the same thing,
but adds more detail
like that bee that he is,
he circles back around
and deals with it the second time.
1 John 2:14 "I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the Word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one."
It's like can you imagine?
You get all these tests thrown at you.
And you're feeling like
you've not measured up so perfectly.
You feel weak.
You feel defeated by John's high standards.
And John says,
what are you talking about?
I can see you.
I know you're not perfect.
But weak?
When you sit there and talk about
your weakness and your failures,
it's sheer ignorance.
Really?
What does he see that we don't see?
John says I know you fail,
but as I mentioned,
the true Christian is going to confess it.
I'm writing to you that you don't sin,
but when you do,
the true Christian is going to find
an Advocate in Christ.
Their hope is only going to be there,
and the propitiatory work of His
upon that cross in satisfying God.
He says it's ignorance when you talk about
weakness like this.
That's strength.
We look at it as though,
well, it's only strength if we live perfect.
He sees strength.
He sees triumph over the evil one
when we sin and we go to God
and we confess it.
And we look to the healing blood
of Christ.
Do you recall what this same John
tells us in Revelation 12?
How do they overcome the evil one?
By the blood of Christ.
How does the conquering take place?
So much of the conquering is here
that when we do fail,
when we do sin, where do we go?
We go back to the blood.
Remember right before that verse,
it says he's an accuser of the brethren.
You see, it's in his accusations
we overcome by the blood.
How?
Because you don't want to argue
performance with the devil
How do you overcome?
You know what the way to deal with the devil is?
And even the accusations of your own conscience?
It's true. I failed.
But let me tell you about the blood.
Let me tell you what that was shed for.
Devil, I did just fail.
I can list lots more failures in my life than just that one.
But let's talk about the blood.
Let's talk about what that accomplishes in my life.
These realities are found in Scripture.
He's talking to these young men
about the fact that this Word of God
is abiding in them.
And John's saying, I see you out there.
I see you that are reading your Bibles.
I see you that are affected by the truths in there.
I see those of you that see the Christ in there.
And He's your hope.
I see that.
I'm writing to you because you're strong;
you're not weak.
These things may make you feel like that,
but you have to recognize,
the Christianity that God puts forth
is for the average Christian,
if we can talk that way.
It's not just for the Charles Spurgeon's
and for the Amy Carmichael's.
This is for us.
And what these things look like in reality
is the kind of Christianity
we're living out in this place
by and large, most of us.
Those of us that are true.
What does it look like?
Yes, there's going to be failures.
Yes, that's going to be there.
Yes, we're going to fall on our faces at times.
We have doubts and things will crop up.
And we're not perfect.
And we know it and John knows it
and the devil knows it.
But we don't deny those things.
We confess it.
We know. We acknowledge we sinned.
But devil, you tell me,
how do you answer to the blood?
Are you going to keep on with your accusations?
It says we conquer him that way.
The truth is he has no answer to that.
And you know what happens when you do that?
You just overcame the evil one.
Really? Wow!
See, that's what he's saying.
You're strong!
You're strong when you do that.
John is just looking out at many of us
and he's saying, I know your faith.
It may be weak,
but though it's weak, it clings to Christ.
I see you hesitating; I see you at times
questioning at the forcefulness of these tests.
Yes, they're forceful.
They're strong.
Yes, your obedience is not always perfect.
Our love is certainly not always perfect.
But he says, look, there's evidence;
there's evidence of reality.
We must not expect this to be easy.
Because it's not going to be.
We're told to strive to enter in.
Many are going to seek to enter in there
and they're not going to be able.
We must not expect everything
in this Christian life to be automatic.
A lot of Christians, they become unsettled
because they feel like,
well, if I truly got saved,
this shouldn't be so hard.
They just feel like the switch
should just get turned off
on these lusts and desires of the flesh
that wage war against my soul.
It's just like, well, if I was really saved,
wouldn't I stop feeling that?
Wouldn't I stop feeling the pull of these things?
Well, as the Christian,
you battle this with truth.
You battle this with the blood.
Certainly, if you're born again,
you're a new creation.
But we know - Peter lets us know,
it's still a battle.
You're going to face combat.
You're going to face conflict,
fierce warfare.
It's hard.
We feel the hardness.
We watch others fall away.
It may cause us to tremble all the more,
but John says I see you there.
You have foundations in place.
I see there are those of you that struggle,
but you show promise.
I write to you because I see those things.
Take courage. Take heart.
Be brave. Be courageous.
Press onward; upward; forward.
You may feel weak.
But you've got to remember,
when you deal with sin by the blood,
you overcome a mighty fallen angel.
You're showing strength.
You show yourself strong.
Not in yourself, but in Christ.
This seems to be what these three verses
are meant to do;
just to bring us back
to the wonderful glories
of being a Christian.
Some of these things that are just
they're there, they're realities.
John can look at them and say,
"I'm writing to you, little children,"
because I know these things are true about you.
I see these things are true about you.
Look, if these things are not true about you,
then Christ bids you -
He bids you to seek Him
while He may be found.
He bids you to cry out to Him.
He bids you, like He says,
"Come unto Me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden."
He bids you to plead for mercy
in the name of Jesus Christ.
He bids you do that.
We don't want to give the dogs
the children's food.
But at the same time,
He doesn't want the children all shaken
about these things.