Title: If You Know Christ
(Lecture 14) 1 John 2:3-6 If you know Christ
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By this we will know that we know him, if we keep his commandments, and he who says, 'I know him' and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly We are made perfect in him, and by this we know that we are in him. He who says that he abides in him must also do as he does (1 John 2:3-6).
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How many people believe in Jesus, but live with Jesus as the most precious person in their lives? If you think of Jesus as the most precious person, it is because you know who Jesus is from you.
Before believing in Jesus, it is important to know who He is. If you had to come into the world, you need to know what God has accomplished in our relationship with Him. At that time, each of His coming and His deeds in the world will remain meaningful to me. Without this, believing in Jesus is nothing more than an imitation of what others do, and it only degenerates into blind faith.
Last time I said that Jesus is our Advocate. To say that Jesus is an Advocate means that we cannot come to God on our own. Because he is an unrighteous being, he cannot approach God, and therefore deserves to be abandoned and thrown away.
However, Jesus stood before us as the prophet. And Jesus speaks on behalf of our iniquities and iniquities. God saw Jesus and accepted us. Therefore, only those who know the misery of life that cannot come to God will be able to look at Jesus as the prophet and give thanks. And you will realize that you cannot live without Jesus. To these believers, those who do not have Jesus are only seen as miserable people who will perish. They are only seen as hopeless beings. Even if you have money, your eyes are covered by money and you feel sorry for not seeing the One who came as life. All of this can be said to be the image of the life of those who are in Jesus.
Verses 3-4 say, “By this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments; and he who says, ‘I know him,’ and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, the truth is not in him.”
You can see John using these terms frequently in Chapter 1 as well. The peculiarity of John's language lies in his saying, 'If you say you are doing something, you are lying when you do something.' In other words, the truthfulness of the belief that one utters is revealed by keeping the commandments.
The important thing to note here is the understanding of the commandments. If you understand the commandments as a matter of keeping the Lord's Day, tithing, and praying as the modern church mainly says, you will fall into a huge error. You should know that it will result in you falling into a path other than Christianity at all. This is because if you do not keep the Lord's Day, you do not know Christ, and if you do not tithe, you cannot but come to a completely different conclusion that is not in the Bible that you know Christ.
Verse 5 says, “And whoever keeps his word, in him the love of God is truly made perfect, and by this we know that we are in him.” By keeping the Word, we show the perfection of God's love in it. In the end, the evidence of a believer that God's love has been perfected is shown by keeping the Word, and the evidence of a believer who knows Jesus is also shown by keeping the commandments.
John is saying these words not to distinguish between believers and non-believers, those who claim to know Jesus and live as strangers, but rather to make believers fully aware of what it means to know and stay in the abundant life of faith in knowing Jesus. should be considered for
However, when we say that if we keep the commandments, we will know that we know Jesus, our attention can turn to what the commandments are. In other words, the idea is to know what the commandments are and what to keep them and keep them. You may be tempted to prove your faith by keeping the commandments.
Therefore, keeping the commandments should be understood not to mean the practice of some surrender, but rather to live for the purpose and intended purpose of the commandments. In other words, it can be said that keeping God's commandments is to realize human injustice before God's commandments and to look to Christ who has come to forgive and solve our unrighteousness.
The words of loving God and loving our neighbors should not be considered from the beginning. This is because human beings are inherently unable to love the invisible God, and cannot love other beings than themselves.
Therefore, love becomes possible only when we deeply realize that I am a person without love and look at the love and grace of the Lord in the judgment and destruction that have been given to us. In other words, it is not that I love, but God's love given to me makes me live as a lover.
Verse 6 says, “He who says he abides in him must also do as he does.” Does this mean that we should see what Jesus did and imitate what he did? Can we really do what Jesus did?
Those who abide in Jesus refer to those who are possessed by the power of Jesus. The power of Jesus is what makes us do what Jesus did. The action of Jesus is love. His love for the Father made him obedient even to the point of dying on the cross. After all, those who abide in Jesus deserve to live as those who love the Father. This means that we will know that we are abiding in Jesus.
In the end, what we need is to know our sins and look only to the Lord. The love of the Lord will compel you to live as keepers of the Word.