Wired to Resist
No one likes being told what to do. We often don’t like those who exercise authority over us simply because they exercise authority over us, and we’d prefer to be left alone so we can do our own thing. For example, we know we should work hard at work, but we don’t like being told to do so.
We’re wired to resist. Why? The Bible teaches that we’re all born with a nature that prefers to do what we think is best, not what God thinks is best, to keep our own rules rather than Gods, to live without laws. The Bible calls this sin. First John 3:4, “Sin is lawlessness.”
- I. Packer, in his book Keep in Step with the Spirit, defines sin like this: “Sin…is in essence an irrational energy of rebellion against God – a lawless habit of self-willed arrogance, moral and spiritual, expressing itself in egoism of all sorts.”[1] Deep inside us is a principle, an “irrational energy,” “a lawless habit,” of antagonism toward God and anyone else who would tell us what to do. We’re wired to resist and don’t like being told what to do because of sin.
Why Does God Care So Much about Sin?
Why all this talk among Christians about sin? Why does God talk so much about sin in the Bible? Does he just like flexing his moral muscles, keeping us in our place, or shaming us?
What if God talks so much about sin because his deepest heart is to give us something rather than deny us something? What if telling us to do certain things and not do certain things is one of the most loving things God could do? What if “not sinning” is such a big deal because God wants to give us life and keep us from death, like when I tell my children not to play in the street because I want them to not die and enjoy life?
God Wants Relationship, Not Rule-Keeping
Friends, if you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, maybe you think that Christianity is about keeping rules and rituals and becoming a better person and new “you.” The Bible certainly contains rules and commands, but the essence of Christianity is relationship with God, not rule-keeping. God made you so that you could know him and be known by him. He’s after your heart, not your outward moral successes.
God wants relationship, not rule-keeping. But every healthy relationship has boundaries. So the people God enters into relationship with are given commands and then, as God enables us to keep his commands, our assurance that we belong to him increases. We all wonder sometimes whether or not we really belong to God, whether our relationship with him is really real. These doubts are normal and shouldn’t make you think you’re weird or not a good Christian.
In kindness, God helps us grow in obedience to show us that we belong to him. It goes like this: God saves us in Jesus and then helps us grow in obedience to increase our confidence that we really belong to Jesus.
Obedience to God increases our assurance that we belong to God. This is the main point of the text we’ll be looking at today, First John 2:3-6. In these four verses we’ll see that obedience reveals relationship (v. 3), no obedience reveals no relationship (v. 4), obedience proves our love for God (v. 5), and obedience means living like Jesus lived (v. 6). We’ll close with a few thoughts on obedience.
Obedience Reveals Relationship
First, our obedience to God reveals that we have a relationship with God (v. 3). In chapter 1, we learned that our posture toward sin reveals whether we’re in the light or not (1:5-10, esp. v. 6). Then in the first two verses of chapter 2, we’re reminded that God’s people do sin, but God has made provision for their sin in Christ (vv. 1-2).
In these next few verses of chapter two, John moves a step further and says that God’s people don’t just avoid sin and confess sin but are actively obeying God’s commands and living lives that look like Jesus’ life.
In verse 3, John lays out one of the tests we can use to discern whether we know God. This is the moral test. There’s also the relational and doctrinal tests. None of them are meant to be binary, or meant to say you either obey or you don’t, love or you don’t, believe or you don’t. If so, we’d all fail miserably!
The moral test laid out in verse 3 is simple. We know we know him if we obey him. John is insisting that no religious experience is valid if it doesn’t have moral consequences. Other religions create people with high moral fiber, so we have to balance this with the doctrinal and relational tests. But the moral test is in view here. The false teachers were claiming to have fellowship with God while walking in darkness (1:6). John says, “Not possible!”
Knowing God according to John is not knowing facts about him or recognizing his work in the world, but knowing him personally. John is more interested in what this knowledge produces than what it is. His focus here is on the result of this knowledge, namely, obedience.
You may think, “Well then no one can really know if they know God because no one is perfectly obedient to God.” John isn’t saying you have to obey perfectly to know if you know God. If so, no one could know, and John says that we can know! He’s saying that those who strive to conform their lives to God’s commands can know that they belong to God.
This striving is evidence of real knowing. It won’t be perfect, but it will be present. As Packer says, “The Christian’s life must be one of righteousness as the expression of his repentance and rebirth. That is basic.”[2] Obedience to God is basic Christianity. Those who know God increasingly obey God.
John says it’s those who keep “(God’s) commandments” who can know that they know God. What does “his commandments” mean? There’s no hint in this letter that John is concerned about obedience to the Mosaic Law. John isn’t trying to make these Christians into good Jews. He’s after something far more profound.
3:23 helps us understand 2:3. He summarizes God’s “commandment” (singular) as believing in Christ and loving other Christians. This is the essence of what God wants from his people. That they believe in his Son and love his church. Reminds us what Jesus said is the “great commandment”: that we should “love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind…and love our neighbor as ourself” (Matt. 22:37-39).
Loving God and loving others is parallel with believing Christ and loving Christians. Obedience in these things is evidence that we know God. Obedience here reveals relationship with God.
Doing what pleases someone reveals that you actually know them. If you didn’t know them, you wouldn’t know what pleases them.
Obeying God by believing in God’s Son and loving God’s people pleases God. So if you claim to know God, you should be doing the things that please him. This starts by putting your trust in his Son, turning from your sins, and loving his people. “Repent and believe the gospel” is the most important command. Everything else follows from there.
No Obedience Reveals No Relationship
Second, no obedience to God reveals no relationship with God (v. 4). This doesn’t mean that those who sin are liars and don’t know God. It’s referring to those who live a lifestyle of disobedience to God’s commands. The verb “does not keep” is in the present tense, so it’s referring to continuous action (cf. 3:9).
This verse doesn’t mean that we’ll never disobey God’s commands. John obviously knows that we will (2:1). It means that those who know God won’t be characterized by disobedience to his commands. John learned this principle from his teacher. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21). God’s people do God’s will.
Those who teach or think that you can truly know God without growing in obedience to God are “liars.” John Stott says, “A person’s words must be tested by his works.”[3]
This is one reason our church takes church membership so seriously. We believe that the church is made up of those who believe the gospel, have been baptized, and give evidence of being born again by the Spirit. The church isn’t those who like Jesus but live however they want. The church is made up of those who actually and actively follow Jesus. How do we know who they are? They’re the ones who’re growing in obedience to God. Membership doesn’t make anyone a Christian, but it does help us know who is a Christian and who isn’t.
This is also why we practice church discipline. If at any time, any one of our members, elders included, start living lives that contradict the Bible, the process of church discipline begins. It’s a process led by the elders but confirmed by the church. It’s for sins that are obvious and unrepentant. Cursing at your friend won’t get you kicked out of the church. But repeatedly lying or gossiping or stealing or looking at pornography without any desire to change will. This feels harsh. But if a Christian is someone who increasingly obeys God, then warning someone who isn’t obeying God of their danger is evidence of love. Telling your friend that the road they’re on leads over a cliff is a really nice thing to do. So the members of the church are responsible to encourage one another toward obedience and pray for one another and warn one another.
Obedience Proves Our Love for God
Third, our obedience proves our love for God (v. 5). John broadens “his commands” to “his word” to refer to God’s will in general. This verse is saying that obeying God’s word, in all that it says, is evidence that we love God.
True love for God is revealed in obedience, not mystical experience, sentimental language, or in using spiritual gifts to serve the church. Packer again, “All through the New Testament, when God’s work in human lives is spoken of, the ethical has priority over the charismatic.”[4] The Bible repeatedly tells us that character is more important than gifts or knowledge. I love how Mark Dever says that if you read a bunch of books on theology but won’t go pick up a widow for church, you may not be a Christian.
John says that “the love of God is perfected,” or “completed,” for those who obey his word. “Love of God” may be better translated “love for God,” as in the NIV, “Love for God is truly made complete.” 5:3 helps us understand what John is saying in 2:5, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” Love for God is revealed by obeying God.
Jesus says this several times in John’s Gospel: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (14:15), “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word” (14:23), “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (15:10).
The idea is that our love for God completes its work when we obey his commands. Stott again says it best, “The proof of love is loyalty.”[5] We don’t honor someone if we betray them. We don’t cherish someone if we ignore them. We don’t love someone if we disregard their words.
Obedience Means Living Like Jesus Lived
Fourth, obedience means living like Jesus lived (v. 6). This point begins at the end of verse 5. It’s the moral test of verse 3 said in a different way. “Abides” means “lives,” and “walk” refers to how we live. So John is saying, “We can know that we live in God if we live like Jesus,” that our call is to conform to the commands and conduct of Christ.
Becoming more like Jesus is actually why God saved us. Paul says that God predestined his people “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29). God intends to show off the beauty of his Son by making his people look more and more like him by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Those who live in God, live like Jesus. How did Jesus live? He was full of grace and truth. He loved sinners. He moved toward people most people moved away from. He wasn’t afraid to upset cultural or religious norms for the sake of the hurting and lost. He loved and knew God’s word. He spent time in private prayer. He took time to rest. He spoke the truth and lived a life that backed it up. He suffered with patience and courage. He fought against evil with the word of God.
His life can be summarized as a life that loved God and loved others. He lived to please God and to bless God’s people. It wasn’t flashy or popular. In fact, his life led to his death. But his life honored God and forever changed the world.
What is God’s will for your life? To live like Jesus lived. You ask, “What about all the things he doesn’t talk about or speak to?” He gave us a conscience and a church to help us be more like him. If we’re unsure about whether we should or should not do something, ask, “Would Jesus be pleased with this?” And then ask a trusted brother or sister what they think. We need each other’s help because we often don’t see the places in our lives that don’t look like Jesus.
Three Thoughts on Obedience
This text tells us that obedience increases assurance. We can know we belong to God if we obey God and live like Jesus. Let me offer three thoughts on obedience to clear up any potential confusion.
First, we don’t obey God in order to be saved, but because we are saved. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” God accepts you based on Jesus’ obedience, not yours. We cannot obey our way into God’s family, and we cannot disobey our way out. As Tim Keller said, “The central basis of Christian assurance is not how much our hearts are set on God, but how unshakably his heart is set on us.”
Second, not all obedience is created equal. Obeying God is always a good idea, but many times our motivations for obedience are more about us than about God. We want to look good and impress people so we obey to create an image of godliness rather than out of love for God.
This leads to a third truth. Without the Holy Spirit, true obedience is not possible. “We all…are being transformed…from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). We need the Holy Spirit to be truly transformed.
“Three Kinds of Men”
- S. Lewis wrote an essay titled “Three Kinds of Men” where he argues that there are three kinds of people in the world. The first only live for themselves, doing whatever they want. The second knows that there’s a code of conduct outside themselves, whether their conscience, the Bible, or their parents. They try to follow it, but they live in a tension between the external moral claims and their natural desires, going back and forth. Lewis compares this to paying a tax. He says people in this second category try to pay their moral taxes faithfully but hope that there’s something left over to spend on themselves.
But then he says there’s a third kind of person: “The third class is of those who can say like St Paul that for them ‘to live is Christ.’…The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs.”[6]
His point is that it’s too simplistic to say people are obedient or disobedient. We can be obedient but in a tax paying kind of way. Christianity is about more than simply obeying God. It’s about enjoying God. Lewis again, “The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort – it is to want Him.”[7]
We can keep God’s rules without his Spirit. But we need the Spirit to enjoy obeying God, to obey him as a result of love for him. Consider why you’re obeying God, and let the Spirit purify our motives.
A Gift of Grace
As the Spirit helps us live more and more like Jesus, our confidence that we belong to him increases. As we follow Jesus, we’ll see, again as Keller said so well, that we’re “more sinful than we could ever dare imagine and more loved and accepted than we could ever dare hope – at the same time.”
This call to obedience is a gift of grace because God wants us to know that we’re his, and he wants to give us life. Sin brings death, so when God calls us out of sin and into obedience, he’s calling us out of death and into life with him. The call to obey God is an invitation to be resurrected.
[1]J. I. Packer, Keep In Step with the Spirit: Finding Fullness in Our Walk with God, rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 20005), 46.
[2]Packer, 49.
[3][3]John R. W. Stott, The Letters of John, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1988), 95.
[4]Packer, 44.
[5]Stott, 96.
[6]Quoted in Dane C. Ortlund, Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 165-6.
[7]Ibid., 166.