Big Idea: We can know what’s true, and what’s true can give us the assurance we need to live for God even when it’s hard.

In many instances, duct tape is highly reliable—but as a means of water transportation, it may not be a prime choice.

Just ask the Alaskan man who recently attempted to cross a channel near Juneau on a “homemade watercraft” —more specifically, “an inflatable, duct-taped craft” —complete with a paddle, his dog, and a conspicuous lack of a life jacket.

A local news outlet stated that while the “weather on scene was reportedly calm with 9 mph winds,” a local Coast Guard crew still ended up coming to the man’s aid: when the makeshift boat started to fill with water.

Having “deemed the craft unsafe,” they “transferred it, the man—and his dog—to nearby Douglas Harbor.”

(Perhaps to guard against embarrassment, the news release “did not identify the man.”)

This man’s “boat” was homemade, patched together with duct tape and carrying no life jacket on board—yet he still trusted it with his life (and even his dog’s life). As we come to the end of 1 John, is there anything we can rely on that will get us to the other side securely and safely?

According to John, the answer is yes. We can have the assurance of eternal life now. We can know what’s true, and what’s true can give us the assurance we need to live for God even when it’s hard.

Review

We’ve been looking, on and off these past few months, at the letter that John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, wrote to the church in Ephesus that had gone through some trouble. They were going through a time of crisis. Some people had left the church, and now John is writing to do damage control. His words, too, were important, because people in the church were hurting. They had questions. John wrote to not only deal with the crisis, but use the crisis as a recalibration on what matters most.

It reminds me of a time that I stood in front of a church and spoke in the middle of a crisis. A popular couple had left the church angrily. In a tight-knit church, it left a lot of questions. Things had gone on for a while, and I knew it was time to stand up and remind people of what mattered most.

If I communicated well, we could get back on track. If I communicated poorly, then things would get even worse. Thank God — literally — my talk went well, and we got back on track. In fact, I think we were an even stronger church by the end of this crisis.

Here’s what I know: in times of crisis, it’s important to focus on what matters most. If there’s anything good about a crisis, it’s that it reminds us of what matters most, which is really important. A crisis can actually serve as a recalibration, as a way to remind us of what’s most important.

And that’s what we’re seeing tonight in our final sermon from 1 John. As we close this book, it’s a little hard for us to relate to all the circumstances that John is addressing, because we’re facing very different circumstances. Because we’re not in crisis, it’s easy to miss the importance of what John is saying. But why wait for a crisis to recalibrate on what matters most? Why not use what John says so that we’re sure that we’re focused on what’s most important, even though we’re not in the middle of a crisis? Because we want to get to the other side securely and safely. We don’t want to do it in a boat made of duct tape. We need assurance so that we can live for God even when it’s hard.

John is going to help us. As we come to the end of John’s letter, it’s important to review what he’s written. According to John, real faith in involves three things: believing, obeying, and loving. If you have genuine faith, three things will be true in your life:

You will believe that Jesus is the Messiah — the promised deliverer — and the Son of God come as a man to…

Big Idea: If you want to establish a lifestyle that leads you to thrive in God, don’t just read the Bible. Become absorbed with the Bible.

I have a problem, and you may too. I am not who I should be.

When things don’t go my way, I’m tempted to throw myself a giant pity party.

When things do go well, I tend to think that I’ve done something to deserve it. Strangely, I don’t seem to think that I deserve it when things go wrong.

I am prone to irritability when things don’t go my way

I sometimes bring up events that happened years or decades ago even though I claim to have forgiven them.

And I could go on. There’s some debate about whether the apostle Paul wrote the following words referring to his pre-Christian state or his struggles as a Christian, but there’s no debate about the fact that I can relate to them:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. (Romans 7:18-19)

Can anybody relate? I was relieved when I read a recent book by Jared Wilson, who said:

I take a look at my messed-up soul every day. I feel completely overwhelmed and underequipped. And so I hold on to the gospel. I pour some gospel into my soul. I am good to go another day. I might be crawling through that day or I might be balled up in my bed, unwilling to charge the Valley of Elah that is my life, but the smile of God is over me continually. Day and night his steadfast love sustains me. (The Imperfect Disciple)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everything is wrong with me spiritually. I am saying that I’m not as far along as I should be, and that my progress isn’t a straight line. It’s a squiggly line full of all kinds of detours and setbacks.

Are you with me? To make it worse, sometimes it seems like church isn’t a place where we can admit that this is true. Too often we pretend that things are better than they seem. We make all kinds of progress, but we also make all kinds of mistakes, and struggle with all kinds of temptations. We’re not at all clear on what it takes to grow.

What Doesn’t Work

We do know that there are a number of approaches that don’t work, because we’ve tried.

We can’t just help ourselves. Someone’s said that “Self-help is like sticking your broken hand in the blender, thinking that’ll fix it” (Jared Wilson). Our problems run too deep. We can’t just resolve to do better. We need a better solution.

We can’t just fill our heads with more information. Don’t get me wrong. We need good theology. We need to know about God. But it’s possible to know and still not change. Our knowledge can actually backfire on us. Again, it’s important that we know the truth, but truth alone doesn’t change.

We can’t just sign up for a new program or technique. We’ve all been suckers for that new book or program that’s going to change everything. But we don’t need a new approach. As we’re going to see, we actually need an old approach, one that must be continually rediscovered and reapplied.

We certainly don’t need just behavioral modification. This goal is far too small. God doesn’t only want you to change your behavior. He wants to change your heart.

So many of our approaches to change don’t go deep enough. I agree with Bono, the lead singer of U2, who said:

Your nature is a hard thing to change; it takes time…. I have heard of people who have life-changing, miraculous turnarounds, people set free from addiction after a single prayer, relationships saved where both parties “let go, and let God.” But it was not like that for me. For all that “I was lost, I am found,” it is probably more accurate to say, “I was really lost. I’m a little less so at the moment.” And then a l…

Big Idea: The Bible is important for your life because of its message, origin, uses, and results in your life.

In 1879 Lieutenant George De Long set out with a crew on the USS Jeannette in hopes of claiming the North Pole for the United States. De Long's plans were based on maps developed by mapmakers at the time (cartographers). Mapmakers believed that there was an open polar ice-free sea, teeming with marine life “whose waters could be smoothly sailed, much as one might sail across the Caribbean or the Mediterranean.”

Unfortunately, every previous expedition that had sailed north in search of the sea had run into a problem — ice. Now you might think that running into ice every time would lead scientists to abandon the theory of an Open Polar Sea. Not so. Instead, they modified the theory slightly. Mapmakers suggested that there was a small circle of ice. All you had to do was to find a gap in that ice, and you’d enjoy smooth sailing to the north pole.

De Long and his crew of 28 men wanted to find that portal. It didn't take long for De Long to realize that all the cartographers, scientists, and geographers had been wrong. He wrote, “I pronounce a thermometric gateway to the North Pole a delusion and a snare.” The ice seemed to stretch out forever.

De Long and his crew came to grips with the fact that they had been duped. The team had to “replace their wrongheaded ideas with a reckoning of the way the Arctic truly is.” In September 1879, the USS Jeannette got trapped in the ice pack and his crew escaped and tried to go toward Siberia. The crew got separated. Some made it to Siberia and survived; others continued their lonely trek through the ice. De Long died in late October 1881 of starvation. He was covered up by snow, except for one of his arms, which was raised as if to signal toward the sky. The wrong maps cost him his life.

James K.A. Smith comments:

Our culture often sells us faulty, fantastical maps of “the good life” that paint alluring pictures that draw us toward them. All too often we stake the expedition of our lives on them, setting sail toward them with every sheet hoisted. And we do so without thinking about it because these maps work on our imagination, not our intellect. It's not until we're shipwrecked that we realize we trusted faulty maps.

Which leads me to ask you: What are the maps for your life? What are the assumptions, the worldviews that guide your life? Is your map true or false? All too often we stake the expedition of our lives on false maps. If we base our lives on a false map, then we will get lost, or worse. It will cost us not only in this life but for eternity.

This is why we’re in a short series called #TheGreatestBook. For just three Sundays we’re looking at the Bible and what it means for us. Today I want to ask the question: Why is the Bible important for our lives? Think about it. What other 2,000 year old book do we hold in such esteem? Which other book do we open up and preaching about every week? Why would we take a book so seriously that was written so long ago by people who lived in such a different culture?

Today’s passage answers these questions. The reason why today’s message is so important is because your life depends on it.

Why is the Bible so important for your life? Four reasons.

Because of Its Message

One of the reasons the Bible is so important is because of its central message. No other book communicates this message. If the Bible didn’t communicate it, we wouldn’t know it. What is this message? 2 Timothy 3:14-15 tells us:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ …

Big Idea: Love is the defining characteristic of God and his people.

Let’s play a little association game today. I’ll show you some words and images, and you tell me what comes to mind.

KFC

Starbucks

New York Yankees

church

God

I find that interesting. For most of us, certain images are tied to certain things. But when most of us think of church and God, most people tend to think of things like religion, sovereignty, holiness, and more.

Today I want to look at the defining characteristic of both God and his people. For some reason, when people think of God it’s not what they think about. And it’s certainly not what people think about when they think of church. Why is this, and what can we do about it?

For the past few weeks we’ve been looking at 1 John, a letter written by one of Jesus’ closest friends to the Ephesian church. We’ve seen that John has given three qualities that define what Christianity is all about:

the truth test — we must believe certain things about God

the obedience test — our lives must be characterized by obedience rather than sin

the love test — we must love because of Christ

The truth test is simple: Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God — that God became an actual man who died for our sins? Jesus is fully God and fully human. He is the only solution to our sin problem. Some in Ephesus didn’t believe this, but we must. One of the most important questions you will ever answer is this: Who is Jesus Christ? Your answer to this question determines everything. We must hold to this truth if we want to follow Jesus.

The obedience test is also simple, but a little intimidating. Do you obey the commandments of God? If you have faith, it will result in a change in how you live. God is light, and if know him then we’ll live in the light too. John isn’t saying that we’ll be perfect. Nobody is perfect. He is saying that our lives will lean in one direction or the other. They will be characterized either by obedience or disobedience.

Those are two of the three characteristics. Today, though, let’s focus on the third characteristic: love. Why is love so important? Because love is the defining characteristic of God and his people.

Love Is the Defining Characteristic of God

John makes two statements about God in this book that are profound and that shape everything else that he says: God is light, and God is love.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

This has huge implications for us. John spends a large part of this book or sermon showing what this means for us. If God is light, and we’re his followers, then we can’t walk in darkness. We’ll walk in the light just like he’s in the light. We can’t follow God who is light if we’re not prepared to walk in the light ourselves.

But then there’s the second statement that John makes about God that also shapes everything:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

God is light, and God is love. These two statements shape a lot in this book. If God is love, then that’s also going to shape how we live. John doesn’t waste any time spelling it out. If we follow God who is love, then we are going to love as well.

What does it mean that God is love? There’s so much to unpack here, because we’re likely to misunderstand what love is, as well as what John’s statement is.

If you search for an image for love, you will come up with a picture like what’s on the screen right now:

We tend to think of love as an involuntary, strong emotion toward another person. We think of romantic love, or the love of a mother for her newborn. So when we hear th…

Big Idea: Genuine, struggling believers: don’t live for this world, and don’t settle for lies about God.

Let’s start today with a pop quiz. Don’t worry. It shouldn’t be hard.

Here it is. If you want to bring out the best in another person, should you:

A. Raise expectations and demand the best of them?

B. Nurture them and begin where they are.

I said it wouldn’t be hard. Maybe I was wrong. Do we act like Terence Fletcher, the music teacher in the movie Whiplash who uses fear and intimidation to bring out the best in his students? Do we follow the advice of so-called tiger moms, who, according to author Amy Chua, use strict discipline to bring out the best in our children, or do we use a more Western approach that focuses on the self-esteem of our children?

We probably won’t solve this debate today, but I’m sure that most of us fall somewhere in the spectrum between these two extremes. Some of us want to challenge and be challenged. We like when someone is blunt with us and calls us out when we could do better. We don’t want to be coddled. Others of us wilt under that kind of scrutiny. We need encouragement rather than challenge if we’re to grow.

A Word to Genuine but Struggling Believers

The reason I bring this up is that John seems to address both kinds of people. We’re spending a few weeks looking at some letters most likely written by John, Jesus’ closest friends, to the church in Ephesus. If you’ve ever looked at these letters, you will have noticed that John uses strong language. He writes using an epideictic style. It’s in your face. It’s not meant to try to convince you of anything. He writes in absolute, black and white terms. He wants to strengthen your belief in what you already believe to be true.

So last week we looked at a passage in which John tells us how we can know if we have genuine faith or not. John gives us three tests. We can know we have genuine faith if three things are true:

We pass the truth test by believing that our sin is a problem, and that Jesus is the solution

We pass the obedience test by obeying God even when we don’t understand or agree with what he says

We pass the love test by loving other believers

On the way home Charlene said, “I really struggled with today’s sermon.” She said that the tests were so strict that they made her wonder if she’s a Christian.

And that’s what John tends to do. John is challenging us to examine ourselves. He doesn’t want us to play games or waste time. And some of us are grateful. We need what John has to say.

But you may be here today feeling like you’re barely holding on. You have genuine faith, but you’re feeling pretty weak right now. Some of us didn’t come to church feeling confident in our faith this afternoon. We mustered what little faith we have and dragged ourselves here with more questions than answers, not really sure if we have enough to keep on going.

John anticipates this, and so he says:

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. 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. (1 John 2:12-14)

At this very moment, all of us are at different stages in our relationship with God. Some of us aren’t believers at all. As we say every week, we are a church that welcomes you. We’re privileged to have you here. We’re honored. As we read the gospels we see that Jesus had all the time in the world for people like you, and we do too. We’re so glad you’re here.

Some of…

Big Idea: If we know we’re sinners rescued by Jesus, and if this leads us to obey God and love other believers, we can have assurance that we have genuine faith.

It could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Just one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings sold for $110.5 million U.S. And a Toronto art dealer has a whole bunch of them. There’s only one problem: nobody knows for sure if they’re genuine or not because there’s no written proof that he painted them. If they’re authenticated, then the paintings are worth a fortune. If they’re not, then they’re a curiosity but comparatively worthless.

Priceless or worthless. It all depends on whether they’re real or not.

It could be worth more than the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London, the gold in Fort Knox, and the investments of Warren Buffet put together. It’s certainly more enduring. Unlike the paintings or money it can’t be destroyed or stolen, and it will also last a lot longer. What is it? Genuine faith. You don’t even need a lot of it. Jesus said that if we have faith like a mustard seed – minuscule faith – that we have enough to uproot trees and move mountains. It’s not the amount of faith. You could have only the tiniest bit of faith, but if it’s genuine and the object of that faith is Jesus, then you have something of greater value than the richest person alive.

But if you have counterfeit faith, you have nothing. So today we must ask the question: How can we know if we have genuine faith? To authenticate a painting, you can check the history of ownership, run forensics, and consult with experts. How do we check the authenticity of our faith? How do you know if your faith is priceless or useless?

John tells us. He gives us three tests.

Test One: The Truth Test (1:6-2:2)

If your faith is genuine, it will believe some things to be true. You don’t need a Ph.D. in theology, but you do need to cling to some truths, not just with your mind but with all of your being.

So what’s the truth test? In the first epistle of John, John gives us a number of truth tests. They all begin with the phrase, “If we say…”

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. (1 John 1:6)

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:10)

These are all negative tests. If we hold these beliefs, John says, it shows that we’re in serious trouble and that our faith is not genuine.

So what do these negative tests hold in common? They all deny the reality and the severity of our sinful condition. I don’t know about you, but I have a serious problem. I really want life to run my way, not God’s way. I’d much prefer to be king of the universe rather than God. My life is basically a movie about me in which all of you exist as supporting characters. You’re not the point, you see. I am. I am hopelessly selfish and tend to think about the things that don’t matter rather than the things that do.

That’s me, but according to John, that’s you too. John says that if we pretend that this isn’t a problem, or if we say that it’s not a problem, then we’re in great danger. Our faith isn’t real. Our faith is worthless. Genuine faith begins with admitting the truth about ourselves: that we are sinners, and that the problem of our sin is serious and deadly.

Not only that, but genuine faith also receives their cure that God has given for sin. John explains the cure in this passage too:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the…

Big Idea: We get Christianity right when we make it about the real Jesus as the solution to our real sins.

Paul LeFeber – Slam Poetry Intro to 1 John from Liberty Grace Church on Vimeo.

Good afternoon!

That’s not the normal way that we begin a sermon. Usually I try to come up with an introduction that grabs your interest and that ties into the passage that we’re going to study. I don’t usually start by punching you in the face like that. That was intense. It was in your face. You may have liked that, or you may have hated that, but I guarantee you one thing: it provoked a reaction. You can’t watch a video like that and not have a reaction.

And that’s a little like the book that we’re going to look at starting today. It’s an important book for us because it explains to us what true Christianity is all about. It’s going to cut through all the clutter and get to the heart of the matter: what does it mean to be a Christian? How can we make sure that we’ve got the real thing? The worst thing in the world would be to get to the end and to realize that we’d missed the point, that we’d based our whole lives on a counterfeit faith. So 1 John has an important message for us, and we need to pay attention.

So let me tell you a little about 1 John, and then we’ll get into what today’s passage says to us today. You’ll notice that 1 John is one of a set of books named, not very creatively, 1, 2, and 3 John. We have a series of letters written to the church in Ephesus. The author isn’t named anywhere, but tradition says that it was written by the apostle John, the one of Jesus’ chosen disciples, the son of Zebedee, and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” of John’s gospel, and that was written near the end of his life. We don’t know for sure, but I tend to think that tradition is right. What we do know is that it was written by someone who claimed to be an eyewitness of Jesus’ life and ministry.

We also know that it was written to the church in Ephesus, a great center of Greek culture in that day. Ephesus would have been a place like Toronto: an urban center with a variety of religious beliefs. And when the gospel arrived there, it exploded. But there were also issues. When the apostle Paul visited there, he warned:

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert…

He was right. By the time John writes this letter, perhaps around the years 90-95 AD, controversy has torn through the Ephesian church. A group within the church had seriously misunderstood and distorted the gospel. Things got so bad that a group had left the church, but they were still trying to influence the church.

So when John writes this letter, he’s writing to a church that’s been split by very different views of the gospel. First, there’s a lot of relational pain. Second, there’s a lot at stake. Why bother with Christianity if you can’t be sure what the message is?

And so John writes these letters. They’re not the normal letters we read in the New Testament. In 1 John he doesn’t follow the normal formula for writing a letter, and as you get into it you realize that John comes on a little strong. I’ll get a little technical here. He writes using an epideictic style. It’s in your face. It’s not meant to try to convince you of anything. It’s in your face. He writes in absolute, black and white terms. He wants to strengthen your belief in what you already believe to be true. It’s written to people who already believe the right things with the purpose of strengthening them in those beliefs so that they don’t wobble. It’s like the video we just watched: it probably wouldn’t convince anyone who didn’t already believe t…