Greater Than, 1 John 3:11-4:6

When I begin to peel back the layers on a quality like love, it’s tempting to hold it out like a specimen to analyze so I don’t have to hold it up like a mirror to my heart. I’d rather make notations on the facts about it than note how I’ve failed at it. Jesus’ standard for love is high. His love gave life instead of taking it, extended life instead of destroying it. 

The first set of brothers got love all wrong from the beginning, and their relationship ended in murder. Maybe we think Cain’s example of hate is extreme, and we protest, “I would lay down my life!” Peter announced he would do that for Jesus, yet in the warmth of a fire, three times denied even knowing Jesus. Isn’t it easier to love through hypothetical claims and flowery words instead of through personal sacrifice? It’s certainly more convenient for me to send an email with love than to make a meal with love.  

When I don’t measure up to Jesus’ love, my heart condemns me. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words explains that condemn means, “to know something against”. Your heart might have stored away something against you that no one else knows and you hope no one ever discovers: hateful thoughts toward someone, a heart closed off from someone's need, unloving actions against someone.  Maybe your heart occasionally regurgitates the mess it holds against you, and you choke it down, uncertain how God might respond if all came out. 

But God doesn’t just “know something against” you; He knows all the things, just like He knew Peter before and after his denial. God is greater than your heart. 

He counted all your sins that condemned Jesus, and His forgiveness tips the scales in your favor. His forgiveness is greater, so we confess what our heart condemns. 

What he says about you carries more weight than the accusations of your heart. His Word is greater, so we believe His truth, not our heart's lies. 

He knows everything regarding your life and still didn’t withhold His life. His love is greater, so we receive it in place of condemnation. 

Jesus gave Peter a way to act on his love: “Feed My sheep”, He said. Put love in action to silence condemnation. Active love consoles an accusing heart, because it’s evidence of the greater love on the inside. If love like this was easy and natural, it wouldn't need to be commanded, and we wouldn't need God's help.

Perhaps in addition to accusations from the inside, you face assaults from the outside. There may be people in your life who are anti-Christ, claiming He isn’t really God in the flesh, like you’ve been told. Sadly, their opposition comes as no surprise, since the world crucified the One we follow. But God is not only greater than your heart, God is also greater than the one who is in the world. His Spirit in you is greater than the presence of darkness around you. 

Do you feel like He's not there or not listening? The starting point for a healthy relationship with God is to follow His first and foremost commands: trust in Jesus, and love one another. Even our private prayers to Him are inseparably intertwined with living obediently to Him in these ways.  But if we’ve ignored these two commands which He has already clearly spoken, why would He speak any further in response to our prayers? 

We’ll keep holding Jesus’ love up like a mirror to our hearts, because no matter how far short we fall, God is greater. 

For John’s record of Jesus and Peter, see John 13:37,38; 15:13; 18:17-27; 21:15-17

Look Three Ways, 1 John 2:28-3:10

Whenever I read a confusing part of scripture, it can be daunting! It reminds me of the stage we’re in right now, teaching our 16 year old how to drive. We come to a busy intersection, and I wonder, will we make it to the other side?!  There’s so much going on and so much to consider! But I take a deep breath at the intersection and remind my son to look three ways: the way you’re headed and the two other directions. 

Similarly, I can start to navigate my way through scripture if I look three ways:

1. Look for clarity. What is straightforward in these verses? So often we skip this step! Our God is a communicating God who has spoken intentionally, so I start by asking Him to show me what is clear.

2. Look at THIS book. What else does this particular book say that could help clarify any confusion? The Spirit of God used specific authors to write specific words for a specific audience, so it’s best to consider the whole message of a book to avoid getting stuck in one place.

3. Look through THE Book. What does the rest of scripture say that might clarify an issue? Since God’s Spirit is the primary source, His message will be consistent across the pages of the Bible. 

 We’ll divide 2:28-3:10 into two parts, and below each section are other passages of scripture that help interpret the Spirit’s message here. 

Transformation in Christ (1 John 2:28-3:3)

Since Jesus is righteous, then those living like Him show that they have been born again. We don’t earn our rebirth by right living; we show our rebirth by it. Remember that one of the goals in 1 John is to recognize what eternal life looks like in real life. The internal spiritual change becomes something visible on the outside, just like fruit on a tree shows what type of seed it came from and just like kids reflect their parents. On the topic of being reborn, John can’t help but explode with a joyful insertion that becoming God’s child is evidence of the Father’s incredible love! 

Christ showed the world who the Father was, but the world missed out on seeing Him. Don’t expect the world to accurately describe God’s children or pick them out in a crowd; since they don’t know the Father, they won’t notice the resemblance to Him in His children. Only when you know the dad well enough, do you recognize his kids.

The more clearly we see who Jesus is, the more we become like Him, and our transformation into His image will be complete once we’re face to face. This future meeting motivates us to take active steps toward His purity, growing into an identity we will one day fully claim as our own. His perfection will finally replace our sin entirely, but not until we’re in His presence; this is key to understanding what John will say about sin in the next section. 

(Check out Matthew 7:16-20; 2 Corinthians 3:18, 4:4,16; Ephesians 2:4-10; Philippians 3:21; 2 Timothy 4:7,8; James 2:26; 1 Peter 1:3,22,23; 1 John 5:1)

A lifestyle of sin vs. a lifestyle of righteousness (1 John 3:4-10)

It’s possible that sin was being taken lightly, excused, or ignored by false teachers in that day. John previously emphasized the reality of sin and the need to confess it (1:8-2:2), and now he emphasizes the nature of sin and Jesus’ confrontation of it. Sin is serious.

A sin pattern is described as:

Practicing lawlessness (3:4)

Not seeing and knowing Jesus (3:6)

Being of the devil (3:8)

Jesus’ first appearing was in order to: 

Take away sins (3:5)

Destroy the works of the devil (3:8)

The devil himself has been unchanged from the beginning; he just keeps on sinning. There is no gospel message for him, no repentance, no rebirth, no pivot, growth, or transformation. As he was when he first rebelled, so he is now.  He doesn’t struggle against sin - he’s defined by it. An unrepentant, continuous sin pattern like his demonstrates that a person is in alignment with the devil, not with Christ. A track record of only opposing what Jesus came to do is not characteristic of God’s children. 

In those of us who embrace Jesus as Savior, God interjects a new, righteous nature that wrestles against the old, lawless nature. We have the choice to “put off” the old self and “put on” the new, and this alerts us to a war between the Spirit and our flesh. Though it’s a constant battle between the two until we see Jesus, we have the power to say no to sin and yes to godliness when we draw from our new identity. Jesus’ death for us paid for our sin eternally; Jesus’ life in us overcomes our sin daily. His Spirit empowers His Word so that we join Him in His work from the inside out, pulling up sin like weeds and growing the kind of fruit that looks like Him on the outside.

 (Check out Romans 6:6-12; 7:15-8:11; 2 Corinthians 5:17,21; Galatians 5:16-25; Ephesians 4:20-24; Titus 2:11-14) 

If you’re weary from sin’s battle and tempted to lay down your defenses in agreement with the accusation, take heart, child of God, and go back to foundational truth: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us” because of our “advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.” 1 John 1:9-2:1

Abide in Him, since He abides in you. 

The Story of a Garden, a Vineyard, and a Body

Long ago, a Gardener spoke a sprawling garden into existence, filling it with abundant life and calling it very good. But life in the garden disagreed with the Gardener’s terms and rejected His perfect conditions. To its own destruction, the garden went its own way. 

The Gardener was not finished with His work; giving life was in His nature, and it was His delight. He had his eye on a scraggly grapevine wilting under the Egyptian sun, and His heart was stirred by its pathetic state.  Instead of cutting it down or letting it die, He uprooted it by hand and carried it with Him until He brought it to a land flowing with milk and honey. There, he transplanted the vine and tended it faithfully until it flourished. “In days to come,” He resolved, “the whole world will be filled with its fruit.” 

But upon growing strong, it turned against the Gardener, resisting His clipping, His watering, and His care. It declared that it was better off free from the Gardener’s routines, and although multiple attempts were made to restore it, it refused to be brought back. It shriveled to nothing.

“What more can I do that I have not already done?” the Gardener thought. In an act of merciful intervention, the Gardener sent His Son.  “I am the true vine.” The Son explained, “Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he is the one who bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” 

The Son put Himself in the place of the cursed garden and lifeless vine. To the branches who had fallen and withered in their rejection of His Father, He offered the life in his veins as the source for the whole world to tap into and flourish. 

Those who embrace Him are infused with His DNA and deemed children of His Father.  All who abide in Him, deeply rooted, develop fruit in their lives that looks a lot like the Son’s life: His love transforms their love, and His perfection perfects them. 

But the enemy has been working since the beginning to shame the dependent and embarrass the needy. “You got this far - can’t you take it from here? Only the weak need Him that badly!” he taunts. What he's covering up with his lies is that drawing life from Jesus actually grows confidence. When Jesus' likeness has been developing in his dependent, then there will be no reason to shrivel like a raisin in the sun when He appears face to face. In expectation of that day, cultivate your attachment to Him. Abide.

Outlasting the Last Days, 1 John 2:15-27

I’ve been to a few graduation parties this summer, and I always smile at the snapshots that do their best to capture 18 years of a student’s life up to that point. From chubby baby to present day, so much has happened, and so much has changed! If I know the graduate well enough, this is the moment my eyes well up quite enough. 

At one party, we were given a slip of paper and asked to put a piece of advice for the graduate into a jar. Hmm. I immediately try to summarize just one single, memorable lesson from my life that might be helpful in theirs. What’s the message from me to them as they go out into the world? Because the world certainly has a message for them. If the world strutted into their grad party, it would throw into the jar all the advice it has ever given to billions of graduates across time:

Put yourself first. 

Take whatever looks good. 

Find security in success.  

It’s a message that defines everything about the world, and, upon examination, it’s a message all about what to love. Paul explained the kind of love people would have in the last days, and it sounds strikingly similar to John’s description of the world:

Love of self

Love of pleasure

Love of money

Why is love spoken of with such caution - to the young, to the old, to graduates? Because, what we love takes us along with it for a shared future. If the world can direct our love, it will direct our steps into its own destiny. Illustrating individually what John warned corporately, Paul grieved that Demas “loved this present world”, and it resulted in his desertion of the faith. He didn’t last, because he chased what couldn’t last. To love the world is to reject the Father’s love, most clearly understood in Christ. No one can have the Father’s love without the Son, the only way to the Father.  John says that taking an anti-Christ position reveals a lack of belief in the heart from the beginning and also that the world’s expiration date is near. 

Since the world isn’t forever, don’t love what doesn’t last. 

But the Spirit lasts forever, present in a life from the very beginning of someone embracing Christ, and He is the ultimate teacher regarding who Jesus truly is. His original and genuine gospel message joins believers forever to the Son and to the Father; anyone who teaches something additional or alternate is a counterfeit. In Christ, God’s promise of eternal life becomes personal everlasting life, because He takes us along with Him for a shared future.

And so, graduate, as you go out into the world, love what lasts.

Remember who you are, 1 John 2:12-14

As a teen, whether I was headed to youth group, to my shift as a waitress, or out to ski for the day, my parents’ most-repeated phrase before I closed the door behind me was, Remember who you are. They may have just finished piling on heaps of last minute advice (Be kind. Do your best. Go the speed limit!) or pointing out potential dangers (Watch out for that crowd. Be careful on the slopes today!), but their parting words reassured me that they hadn’t said what they did as if they viewed me as wholly unkind and reckless. Rather, their statement, Remember who you are, rooted me in an identity they supported and reminded me to live according to it. 

Leading up to verse 12, John has just drawn a hard line between darkness and light, piling up evidence for one lifestyle and pointing out deficiencies in another. It could have sounded accusatory, as if the Spirit was implying that the readers’ lives were defined by darkness and that it was time to confront them in writing. But that’s not the case. Instead, verses 12-14 are like a gentle reprieve, rooting them in their identity. Remember who you are.

They are: 

Little children whose sins are forgiven for the sake of Jesus’ name

Fathers who know Him who is from the beginning

Young men who have overcome the evil one

Children who know the Father

Fathers who know Him who is from the beginning

Young men who are strong, have God’s Word abiding in them, and have overcome the evil one 

The repetition of similar wording is confusing, so let’s see what we can discern with a closer look.

Little children is a term of endearment that teachers used to address their students, and, in this book, John frequently refers to his entire audience as little children. Jesus addressed his disciples like this, and Paul called the Galatians by this term (John 13:33; Galatians 4:19). Here, the Apostle John specifies that the little children who follow his teaching are not forgiven of their sin on account of their own names or because of their esteemed teacher’s name.  Likewise, our forgiveness is not because of us, or who we follow, or whose Bible studies we complete, or who our pastor is. There is only One whose name clears our sin record, and it’s His name we claim as His little children (1 John 2:2).

The second reference to children is a different Greek word. As explained in Vine’s Expository Dictionary, it describes a person who is young in age or in development. No matter how old someone is when they trust Christ, or how recent someone’s re-birth may be, their conversion results in a relationship with the Father. There is no advanced stage, phase, or level to reach in order to know Him. Our Father isn’t holding us at arm’s length until we grow up and get it together or act like someone else who’s further along. Children are not excluded; counter-culturally, they’re welcomed (Matthew 18:3; 19:13,14). 

Fathers could be taken literally or figuratively, according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, and since it’s repeated twice, it may imply both.  Whether some were physical parents or metaphorical “founding fathers” in the faith, they themselves are not the originators of life or of eternal life. Even the mature and advanced have someone ahead of them to look to and lean on: the Alpha who began it all and who existed before it all began. (Hebrews 12:2; Revelation 21:6). 

Strong’s Concordance explains that young men means, “a youth, under 40” (and all the 30-year-olds nod in approval). My teenage sons would be thrilled to be described as “strong” or “overcomers” against anyone and anything. The battle for the young is real. It’s against the “malignant one”, as Vine’s Expository Dictionary translates evil one, and the battle is threatening, because it attacks like a disease. But instead of being a scare tactic, convincing youth to run for cover, this message is one of victory. Their abiding strength is God’s Word in them, like a concealed weapon. 1 John will later expand on the concept of overcoming, pointing to the Spirit inside who is greater than the spirit of the antichrist. Power to overcome is because of faith in Jesus, mightier than all the evil in the world (1 John 4:4; 5:4).

With whatever category you most identify today, this is written to you. Remember who you are. Put it on repeat.