Sermon Outline

Walking In the Light Looks Like Loving Each Other – 1 John 2:1-11

May 4^th

Big idea: Authentic Christianity is shown in love-shaped obedience. Christ’s finished work removes condemnation, yet the proof we “know God” is a life that resembles Jesus—beginning with sacrificial love for fellow believers.

Review: Apostle John, last living eyewitness, writes to assure believers.

• Ch. 1: God is light; genuine faith = “walking in the light.”
• Ch. 2 returns to the theme with practical tests.

Comfort & Foundation – Our Advocate (1 Jn 2:1-2)

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (NIV)

• Purpose #1 of letter: complete joy (1 Jn 1:4). Purpose #2: motivate holiness.
• Justification: saved by grace through faith alone—no condemnation.

Test #1 – Obedient Lifestyle (1 Jn 2:3-6)

“We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.” (NIV)

• “Know” = covenant relationship (Jer 31:33-34; Jn 17:3).
• v-6 “NIV … must live as Jesus did.”

Test #2 – The Old-Yet-New Command (1 Jn 2:7-8)

• Old: rooted in OT; New: embodied & illuminated by Christ.
• True light already shining—(God’s commands are consistent throughout Biblical Theology)

Test #3 – Love vs. Hate (1 Jn 2:9-11)

“Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness… Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light.” (NIV)

Take-Home Challenge

• Ask: “Where am I withholding love inside Christ’s family?”
• Choose one concrete act of forgiveness, empathy, vulnerability, or hospitality this week.
• Expect outcome: deeper joy, stronger fellowship, brighter witness.
  

BBCC Verse of the Week:  This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. 1 John 2:5c–6

Who Should Come to the Lord’s Table?

[T]hose who are truly sorrowful for their sins, and yet trust that these are forgiven them for the sake of Christ;  and that their remaining infirmities are covered by his passion and death;  and who also earnestly desire to have their faith more and more strengthened, and their lives more holy; but hypocrites, and such as turn not to God with sincere hearts, eat and drink judgment to themselves. 1 Cor. 10:19-22; 11:26-32, Ps. 50:14-16; Isa. 1:11-17

– Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 81

Study Notes

God’s amazing grace is that God loves and accepts us because of what JESUS did and not because of anything we do. John talks about this in 1 John 2:2 – “[Jesus] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  E.g. JESUS pays the price for our sins.  But now, John is moving on to a different point, now that you’ve been forgiven through no accomplishments (merit) of your own, now that you belong to God – obey God. These are points in tension. “God loves you just as you are” vs “Obey God’s word” and I think lots of folks cling to one point to the exclusion of the other. But scripture holds to both. This morning we’ll be emphasizing the second point strongly, but not to the diminishing of the first.  Christian growth is being able to hold both at the same time. On the one hand bring grateful because Jesus did it all – “nothing in my hands I bring”, but then at the same time, for fellowship but not forgiveness, not out of guilt but out of gratitude – we should walk in the light, living as Jesus lived. – SS

Note: 1 John 2.2 It seems that John is writing to Jewish Christians who might have been tempted to suppose that Jesus, as Israel's Messiah, was the remedy for their problems, for their sins, and for them alone. Not a bit of it, says John. Jesus' sacrifice atones for our sins, "and not ours only, but those of the whole world." just as God didn't remain content to be in fellowship only with his own son, but wanted to extend that fellowship to all those who met and followed Jesus; and just as John is writing this letter so that its readers may come to share in that same divine fellowship; so now all who know themselves to be forgiven through Jesus' death must look, not at their own privilege, but at the wider task. God intends to call more and more people into this fellowship. – N.T. Wright

If God is light, and if he desires the worshipful fellowship (1:3-7) of humans (cf. John 4:23), then those humans must somehow be delivered from darkness—that is, from sin, whether conceived of as so-called sin nature or as particular wrongful acts. To this end, their privilege is to embrace a saving knowledge of God, who is light. In popular Christian religion of modern times, the impression is sometimes given that sin is in the end not intrinsic to the person (“God hates the sin but loves the sinner”), or that sin is compulsory by God’s design (“that’s just the way God made me”), or that salvation alters the destiny of the soul someday but not necessarily the behavior of the body today (“Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven”; “I’m just a sinner, saved by grace”), or that tolerance mandated by Scripture forbids ethical distinctions of any kind (“judge not lest you be judged”). While John would no doubt recognize the element of truth in some of these slogans in appropriate contexts, he would also decry their misuse. He writes to commend a higher road: liberation from the compulsion to believe, behave, and love in ways that fall short of God’s glorious and transforming light. He writes to commend a full, satisfying, and efficacious knowledge of God. - Robert W. Yarbrough

Discussion Questions (Tom Wright)

• Read I John 2:3-11. Obeying or disobeying God's commandments would appear to be a matter of externals-what we do or refrain from doing. How does John explain obedience as a matter of the heart (vv. 3-6)?
• Why does obedience to God give us assurance that we know him?
• John does not overtly state the "old command" (vv. 7-8). From the context, what is this command? In what way is the new command actually new?
• John writes serious warnings about hating a family member in Christ (vv. 9-11). How are conflicts destructive for those on both sides of a dispute as well as for the church as a whole?
• Given John's warnings about hating a fellow believer, how should we respond instead when we find ourselves in deep disagreement with people in our fellowship or the church broadly?

For next week – Read 1 John 2:12-14                 Pastor Samuel Sutter //  sam@BBCCOnline.org

‍