1 John 2:7-14
Notes
Transcript
1 John 2-
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
Lets pray.
Have you ever had something that was old but new? I sat for about an hour and tried to think of something that was old but new. I Googled “something old but new” and guess what showed up? You’ll never guess but just for fun…take a guess in your head. Exactly, the same thing your thinking of showed up…NOTHING. So, after sitting for an hour trying to think of some cool analogy for you this morning and coming up empty then realizing Google doesn’t even have something…I decided to shut that down and just focus on the text. So lets look at verses 7 and 8 real quick.
Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
So what is the Old Commandment that they had from the beginning?
Remember these are Jewish Christians...
I can think of a couple:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”
“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might
and
18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
These are pretty old commandments that they had heard from the beginning.
Its not only OLD…its NEW! Look at verse 8!
verse 8, “At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you”.
When John is telling them about the Old Commandment that they had heard from the beginning he is most likely referring to the passage, to “love your neighbor as yourself”
So how is this Old Commandment New?
One way the Old becomes New is what Jesus did with these two verses…he combined them into basically one. While the Jews were so concerned about obeying all the commandments of God, Jesus said if you do these two then you fulfill the whole Law.
Now, can any one of us in here do that on our own? Can any of us in here muster up enough GRIT in ourselves to do that? NO! Only through the power of the Holy Spirit can we do it at all but we still fall to our own sinful nature don’t we.
Another way that Old Law of “love your neighbor” became NEW is Jesus said not to just love your neighbor as yourself but love your neighbor the same way I have loved you. Look up here at
Look at another way he made the Old Command New...
Look at again…
You see here where it says “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people…but you shall love your neighbor as yourself”?
Jesus made this Old Commandment NEW by telling us that our neighbor is everyone. It doesn’t matter their race, their socioeconomic class, but to love everyone…even our enemies.
HE just took this OLD Commandment DEEP didn’t he? See, it is not a new commandment...its Old…but it’s NEW.
But this OLD Commandment is NEW in another way…here’s an analogy for you...
I have this Arabian friend…his name is Shane Ware. He owns Trinity Diamonds over there off Thomas Rd. I go in there sometimes and one time I was in there he let me hold a diamond worth $500,000. That’s not my point but I wanted ya’ll to know I held a diamond worth $500,000.
Here is my point. When Im in there and they are doing things with diamonds that diamond people do…they do this.
They put this little black velvet piece of cloth on their desk and they get a little baggy full of diamonds. They empty this little baggy full of diamond on the black velvet cloth and just stare at them for a little bit. I guess they are just taking it all in thinking to themselves…”thats a lot of money on that little piece of black velvet”. So they stare at them for a bit then they get these little tweezers and pick one up, they put this little magnifier on their eye and they hold that diamond up to the light and turn it and look at if from all different angles, watching the light reflect off of it from all different sides and then they’re like, “ewwww, now this is a good one right here”.
That’s the analogy of the gospel. It looks good right there in front of us. It looks awesome the first time we put it on the black velvet cloth. But when you pick the gospel up and study it from all different angles it just gets that much better doesn’t it?
See, for most of you in here I’m not going to tell you something “new” about the gospel of Jesus Christ. My prayer is that somehow I can just lift up the gospel of Christ and turn it where you can see another side of it…where you can see it a little deeper and say, “ewwww, now thats a good one right there”.
So, we have this Old Commandment but Christ took it deeper for us and made in NEW...
The text says in verse 8 that this new commandment is new and it is TRUE IN HIM…and in you.
We read in of the New Commandment from Jesus…he then says that He will send the Helper to live in us…the Holy Spirit.
Because they have the Holy Spirit and the are abiding (resting) in Christ the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.
John is saying that he knows they are producing fruit...
He acknowledges that the darkness that they once walked in is passing away because they are walking in the light, which is Christ.
Look at verse 9
Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.
What is it that proves these people are still in darkness?
the fact that they hate his brother.
Are these people hating everyone that calls themselves a Christian? NO. Who is it that they are hating? Most commentaries say it is John and those with him that they hate.
They aren’t hating each other and they aren’t hating these people that John is writing to YET. They are tying to win them over to their side.
Check out what John says about this...
Look at chapter 4:20
chapter 3:14-15
The OLD Commandment that is a NEW Commandment says that we are to love, sacrificially, selflessly everyone…even our enemies.
How can you know God, truly KNOW Him, if you hate someone who claims to be your brother?
Now we can disagree with them, we can rebuke them, we can correct them, we can challenge them…BUT WE CAN NOT HATE THEM.
We can not murder them in our hearts.
If we are doing that, if we have done that we better REPENT of it and do all we can to make it right.
Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.
If we TRULY love our brother we will do everything we can not to hurt them wont we?
John starts this section off with “Beloved”. The meaning for “Beloved” is a person dearly loved and cherished. This is how we should treat our brothers and sisters…with deep compassion.
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
1 John 2:11
These people who are in the darkness, the ones who hate their brother or sister…they walk in darkness and they don’t have a clue as to what they are doing…you know why? because the darkness has blinded their eyes.
These false teachers that John is writing about really think they are doing what is right. They think they are right and John is wrong. They hate him and they are doing everything they can to try to prove to others he doesn’t know what he is talking about. This is why John started off his letter telling them to trust him…he walked with Christ....in this section he says trust me, the Apostle John and my writings…Im not giving you some NEW commandment like these false teachers have dreamed up. Im giving you an OLD COMMANDMENT THAT CHRIST MADE NEW BY GIVING LIFTING THE OLD ONE UP AND SEEING HOW DEEP AND BEAUTIFUL IT IS...
Paul doesn’t leave his readers here hanging…if he did, some may be worried or nervous that he may be talking to them because we all struggle with this at times if we are honest with ourselves.
There are times when me and Darcy are in a big old argument (thats a nice pastor word for HUGE FIGHT) and I think to myself… horrible things. I have said some horrible things and have had hate in my heart at times. But thanks be to God that he quickly shines His light on my heart and and draws me closer and gives me the strength to see my nasty sinfulness that drives me to repentance to her and to God.
I think all of us in here struggle at times with this but we CAN NOT stay there as Christians. A Christian CAN NOT stay in a state of hatred toward a brother or sister.
So John doesn’t leave them hanging there. He knows that some may read that and think to themselves… “Does he think thats me? Is he saying thats me?”
No…he reassures them.
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Branton
Nate
Norman
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